Might wanna check someplace relevant to game scores... like GameRankings.
If we consider a game with an average score of over 85% to be "critically acclaimed", we see Madden still falls there on the PS2. However, Madden's score has been dropping, slowly but surely since Madden 2003. Madden 2003 got a 91.3% average, 2004 got a 90.8%, and Madden 2005 has a 90.0%.
NBA Live doesn't make it above 81% average this year, so it isn't what we'll call "critically acclaimed" for this unscientific survey.
MLB 2005 also doesn't make it with only a 79.9%
NHL 2005 saw a drastic drop year over year in averages. NHL 2004 had an 84.4%, which would have almost made it, but this year's NHL 2005 has only a 77.1%.
Now, let's look at Sega's lineup for this year.
ESPN NFL 2K5 scores an 89%. A mere 1% lower than Madden, and almost 2.5% higher than last year's, which was also higher than 2K3's score. Sega's game goes up in review scores, EA's goes down. Funny that EA got this license from the NFL, eh?
ESPN NBA 2K5 gets a 84.8%, not making it "critically acclaimed" for our survey, but close, and rated higher, overall, than EA's NBA game.
ESPN NHL 2K5 gets a 87.8%. That makes it to our list, and is 10.7% higher in the ratings than EA's arcadey crap NHL game (as it should be, because EA's is arcadey crap).
There is no Major League Baseball released for ESPN this year to compare. Or, at least no reviews of ESPN Major League Baseball 2K5.
So, take Metacritic's "green" rating and toss it. Go to GameRankings and see a site dedicated to just video game reviews, and it will give you a much better idea of what reviewers thought of any game out there. And these were scores just for the PS2 versions, not the Xbox versions.
Arcadey crap. Increase the difficulty means: 1. Your players skate slower, the computer controlled team skates faster. 2. Your goalie gets dumber (lets through the easiest of shots ALL the time). 3. If the CPU team touches you when you have the puck, you lose the puck; you have to send them off their skates to get it off of their players.
Sorry, if I want arcade hocky, then I'll go to EA. If I want a more realistic game, I'll stick with Sega's NHL games. I haven't looked back since NHL 2K3.
Look on metacritic, how many of EA's games are "in the green"...that comment is just a joke. There's a reason why they sell the most games.
There's a reason, yes, but it isn't because they make the best games. It's blind brand loyalty. Madden could be exactly the same for a few years in a row, with just roster changes, and it will still sell like mad. Why? Because people are used to buying Madden. They'll buy it every year just because it's Madden. Even if they don't conciously think they're buying it because of brand loyalty, they'll still run out and buy it every year like the sheeple they are.
It wouldn't matter if tons of reviewers panned Madden and said to go out and buy GameCompanyX's NFL game because it was so much better... Madden would still rule the roost because it is Madden.
The only game series you mentioned that they put out that was even good was Def Jam Vendetta and Fight for NY. Well, I never tried The Sims or Battlefeild 1942, but of the others (which I have played), the only good series is the Def Jam series, and that has more to do with AKI developing it than EA publishing it.
Comcast advertises up to 128 kbps upload right now... but I'll be damned if they ever let us get to that. We're capped at around 30 kbps upload. They obviously don't advertise this artificial cap in the area. It probably has to do with people like my brother who like to leave their Kazaa and other file sharing network programs up 24/7... but I say just cap his IPs bandwidth then, and leave mine the fuck alone!
Makes it damn near impossible to host Internet games on either my PC, Mac, PS2, or Xbox.
Actually, when I was on a 3D design newsgroup back when I used Bryce 3D, I could go through 2 GB in a few days looking at new posts. It was a binary group, but the binaries were pics we created... and you'd get the dumb fucks who would quote the pic in their reply, and eat up that much more bandwidth.
So I joined another free Usenet server outside of Comcast's, also because some of my gaming groups got removed from GigaNews' servers, which pissed me off to no end. These were text only groups to begin with, and one day I just went to check them and they were no longer carried by GigaNews.
Besides, GigaNews' retention sucks. On the @Home news server, I had retention going back many weeks... on GigaNews I had to log on practically every day if I wanted to read stuff because their retention is like a week to 10 days. I'm not a Usenet junkie, I like to check maybe a few times a month unless I'm in a conversation or critiquing people's 3D landscapes/creations. GigaNews simply didn't cut it for me. My new server has a better download cap, and better retention than GigaNews (although still less than I'd like for retention-- I just logged on for the first time in a month, and responses to some of my posts are now gone for me to read... Google it is for them).
My reviews on GamesAreFun tend to be a bit lengthy, but not in a "make the reader think about ideas" sort of way. Instead I explain controls, how I feel the story (if any) is, what I think of the graphics, sound, and overall how much fun or lack thereof I had while playing the games.
Then there's some games that I can get the whole point accross in a fairly concise review, like my Midway Arcade Treasures 2 review.
I prefer to let the readers know as much as possible without any spoilers. I realize some of my reviews may be long winded, but that's just me and my writing style. Some people like the reviews, some don't. And that's how it always will be as well.
No self respecting 18-35 year old is going to start playing a DS on the train. It looks like a childs toy because, in essence, that's what it is.
Which would mean you aren't self respecting of yourself, since you not only say you have a DS but have pulled it out in public, right?
The PSP looks cool - I've yet to use mine without generating a crowd of admiring observers. In comparison I've had my DS for over a month more and it's never generated anything like the same interest.
So, you try and look cool by playing handhelds? Or do you try and show off that you have money to burn because of import prices to the UK? The PSP looks to be going for £196 for the standard pack, and £228 for the value pack, plus shipping, plus a potential customs duty, plus handling fee for UK courier, plus 17.5% of the price (for tax? not sure, just going by what I know from some UK importers I know)... that's a pretty hefty amount of money for a system just to have it 4 months before UK launch. How many games do you have for it, too? The price I see for games is US $59.90 (£32.0668).
Figure the DS is probably going for £100-£150 import price plus everything mentioned above (unless you can find a local import shop, but then they still charge more than the online importers for the console, but none of the extra fees are there after the price); plus games and all that jazz. Man, you must have money to burn, since you're importing electronics all the time.
When Sony released the original Playstation they made gaming acceptable to the mainstream. Nintendo and Sega were/are seen as toy companies - Sony were the acceptable face of videogaming.
Yeah, and look at the signal to noise ratio on the PlayStation line of consoles too. Sony brought us shovelware and then some. And look at what Sony has made the biggest selling franchise: Madden. Joy. Now there's frat boys and morons out there playing games who never would have touched them before the PSOne-- and I'd rather they weren't playing the games. That's the SpikeTV crowd, that's the MTV crowd, thats the crowd where if there was some genetic disease that would kill off stupid people, they'd all die.
Sony will market the PSP as a portable entertainment device - a machine that plays music, videos and (whisper it) games.
A device where you have to buy all sorts of over-priced Sony made or licensed products to use those multimedia features. Memory Stick Duo prices are outrageous for their sizes. And UMD movie disks haven't seen a US or UK and European price yet. Plus, who in their right mind is going to buy a movie a second time just to watch it on their PSP, especially when the UMD version won't have the special features and such available on DVD?
You made a good troll attempt, really... but we have yet to see how well the PSP will do in all the markets. The PSP hasn't sold out in Japan, in fact, the numbers showed it didn't even sell through 71% of its total shipped number in 2004 in Japan... and we won't know how it will do in the US and Europe, yet, because we STILL don't know the US/European price, or launch date, or price of games.
How does the XBox handle someone who wants to grab their saves and a game they own and head off to a friend's house (who already owns an XBox)? With the PS2 or Game Cube, you just grab the memory card and the game and head over.
There are 8 MB memory cards available... alas, as others have pointed out, some games have save files too large to fit on them. KotOR and KotOR II saves are around 25 MB each.
assume you can copy save games between XBoxs when they're connected to the LAN too. This doesn't come up too often, but still - it does come up occasionally.
Actually, you can't. Ironic being as network gaming was what they pushed before Live, and yet you can't transfer settings or saves over the network. Oddly enough, transferring over a LAN is something so simple, even crap OSes Windows 95 can do it, but the Xbox with it's modified Win 2K kernel can't.
Untrue, actually. The upcomming Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict looks better than Halo 2 (IMHO) and seems to run much smoother than the final release of Halo 2 from what I saw at E3.
The problem with Halo 2 isn't that it stretches the Xbox to its limits, it's that even with 2 years of working on the game, Halo 2 was still rushed out. That's why there's all the problems of texture pop in, in-game engine cinemas having horrid pop in (buildings, textures, characters who are speaking, etc), and bugs that allow for massive exploit cheating in Xbox Live multiplayer-- that Bungie can't fix now that it's out because of how they developed the downloadable content part.
There's an interview in the newest EGM with them, and lo and behold it comes to light that the geometry problems in multiplayer maps (specifically reaching through solid objects to grab items) was discovered in March of 2003, but due to rushing to add new features and to meet the date MS said it would be released, the fixing of these problems had to be cut from development (over 18 months after discovery).
It's unfortunate that Bungie has become a true Microsoft shop: features first, bug fixes later, if ever.
"Fable" was awarded "Best Role-Playing Game" at last month's Spike TV's second annual Video Game Awards.
Do you REALLY want to mention that the Spike TV Winners Bought and Paid For By Advertisers Video Game Awards are really the way to say how good a crap ass RPG like Fable is?
I would argue that Apple has a 'virtual monopoly' with iTunes. The civilian Mac users (including those in my household) do not waste time downloading Real or any of the other music software, because Apple pre-loads iTunes. "Why would I use something else, when I have all I need right here?"
Or in more cases, "Why should I download RealPlayer when it sucks? Oh yeah, because if I want to watch certain streams or listen to certain audio streams online I need it." or "Why should I download WMP for Mac when it sucks on the Mac? Oh yeah, because if I want to watch certain streams or listen to certain audio streams online I need it"
You know, the same reasons people use when they get QuickTime or RealPlayer on Windows. My iBook has WMP and RealPlayer, but thery're only for certain things (RealPlayer for NPR's audio, for example), for music I'll use iTunes. As a music player, it is fine, and it has a great search feature as well-- which the other players simply don't have. And other popular players on Windows simply aren't on the Mac, like WinAmp, so Mac users will just use iTunes (and the hack to let it play Ogg Vorbis files if they have them, like me).
In fact, if you have the space, you can buy a sizable CRT HDTV for a relatively affordable price. Not cheap, but something an average consumer could afford if they were willing to sacrifice a bit.
I did just this a little over a year ago. My previous TV, a 20+ year old set with only RF in, had done me well for a while, but the picture tube was going (green bleeding into everything).
So, I saw an ad in Best Buy for a nice sized HDTV monitor (no built in tuner). So I saved up my extra cash for a few weeks, and went and checked the week before I would have enough, they had an open box display unit for less than the new ones, so I figured I'd get that when I came back the next week.
Alas it was gone, so I had to get the new one, but even so I got a Samsung 27" normal ratio HDTV monitor with 2 component inputs, S-video, and a few composite inputs for under $700.
Sure, I would have liked a bigger TV, but my space was limited, and the picture on DVDs and and my GameCube and Xbox hooked in through component (PS2 on S-video) is great (TV reception sucks, but my whole house is like that). But, hot damn, this TV is fucking heavy! The manual says it is 100 pounds. Needless to say, it's been moved once, and isn't moving again for quite some time.
Just because MS is not making money on the consoles themselves, does not mean that the game division isn't making money.
False. Go to the SEC website and check Microsoft's quarterly and anual financial reports. The Xbox division is part of the Home and Entertainment Division... and since the Xbox was launched in november of 2001, the Home and Entertainment division has lost over $2 billion.
Since the Home and Entertainment Division is not making more money than they are spending, and the Xbox and its games account for most of that divisions revenues and losses, it is quite clear to anyone who knows basic algebra, that Microsoft is not making any money on the Xbox.
Microsoft's last quarterly report clearly shows another loss on the Home and Entertainment Division for the quarter ending Setember 30, 2004 of $126 million on earnings from the division of $601 million. They didn't lose as much money as the same quarter of 2003 ($181 million lost), but they still lose over $100 million... yet again. If you check over their past few quarterly reports, you'll easily see the Home and Entertainment division losing over $100 million per quarter, pretty much consistently for over a year now, with a few of those quarters topping $200 million lost and one or two going over $300 million lost.
The money is in the games and licensing.
Yes, it is. Too bad Microsoft isn't actually making any money off of these things. If it wasn't for Windows and Office, they wouldn't be making the billions they make... although MSN showed a profit again, which is rare.
"Perhaps, the largest success story of this generation would have to be Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox. The game continues to top the charts after nearly three years on the market. Why? Because it features polished gameplay and a completely original world and story; it was fresh, it was new, it was fun, and it was immersive."
Fresh? New? It's the spiritual successor to Bungie's Marathon series, and another FPS where you are against aliens, hardly fresh or new. It sold so well because for the first year, there wasn't much of anything else for the Xbox for the masses to embrace.
I'd agree it was immersive, the first time through, but after that the multiplayer was the only reason to pick it up again, certainly not the single player (unless you wanted to beat it on harder difficulty levels)... but the only difference in the ending is on Legendary, and it's a dumb but funny change. And, honestly, except at a friend's house for LAN games, I haven't touched the original Halo since I beat it. I've also pretty much stopped playing Halo 2, even online, because there's a ton of issues that need to be fixed.
They're redoing halo 2 because they were pressed for time and it didnt have all they wanted in it. Now that they have time, they're making a 2.5 release to add in the stuff missing. Not to mention Xbox couldnt handle Halo 2 correctly.
Then the obvious solution would have been to simply give Halo 2 more time for development, and probably make it a Xenon launch title. We'll find out in May, but it seems ever more certain MS plans on launching the Xenon in late 2005.
What would another year have meant to people who wanted a full fledged sequel to Halo, and on a system that can do more than the Xbox? Maybe on the Xenon the in-game engine cinemas wouldn't have so much pop-in and textures would also not just pop into existance when you get close enough to them (or at least not as noticeably).
Of course, Microsoft just wanted another big game on the Xbox (the Xbox does have the least amount of million unit selling games, after all), and to get people on Xbox Live... and that year would have been time wasted for the ever important subscriptions to try and make some money off the Xbox.
I know I was disappointed in Halo 2, overall; especially when it became known that Bungie didn't even freaking check their geomotry in levels to make sure you couldn't reach through what should be solid objects and grab weapons and flags for multiplayer maps.
But, I doubt I'll be spending the extra money on a Xenon with the hard drive just to get something I already paid for this past November.
Re:If it's true, it's a ploy...
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Halo 2.5 for Xbox 2
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, Halo helped sell the Xbox. Why on earth does everyone complain like there's something wrong with having a good launch title? What did the PS2 have? Tekken? And the GameCube? Luigi's Mansion?
For the Madden fans, the PS2 had Madden at launch. The GameCube had Rogue Leader.
But, the point being that none of the other games for the Xbox's entire first year would have carried the Xbox or sold Xboxes. And, at the time, there was no promise of potentially really good games coming out, either. And without Halo to sell Xboxes, there wouldn't be the good games that are out for the Xbox now, because developers and publishers wouldn't have gone for it.
None of the other consoles had any decent games in their launch window
As I said, for the Madden fans there was Madden. but, for me, you are correct, there was no good launch games or games within the launch window for the PS2. Then there was the promise of MGS and FF and Gran Turismo to keep people interested.
For the GC there was Rogue Leader on launch day, and Super Smash Bros. Melee came out within a few weeks of launch, both of which sold well, and were more of a reason to have a GC at launch than Luigi's Mansion. And then the promise of a new Mario and Zelda and such would keep people interested in the GC.
But, for the whole first year, the Xbox had Halo, and not really much of anything else (except to me, with JSRF, but I'm a minority there). What was promised? Malice? A game that came out 2 years late and sucked anyway? Fable? A game that was not only in development forever and a day, but also sucked hardcore when it was finally released (again, I'm a minority here, but I hated Fable, and was glad it was over in less than 20 hours)?
There's nothing wrong with having a good launch title, but people really need to open their eyes and see that without Halo, the Xbox would not have the good games it does have now, nor would it be selling anywhere near the rate it does. And for one game to carry a console for a full year is not a good thing, really.
If it's true, it's a ploy...
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Halo 2.5 for Xbox 2
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· Score: 5, Interesting
A friend of mine works for a subsidiary of Activision... and no, I won't name him or which one because he told me a lot of stuff he shouldn't have due to NDAs-- and I'm not getting him or his company in trouble. But, the info that got leaked a few months back, about there possibly being 3 different Xbox2/Xenon/whatever you want to call it versions is true, according to what he has been told by Microsoft.
Of course, the hard drive version will cost more than the non-hard drive flash memory version... so if they really are putting a Halo 2.5 pre-loaded onto the hard drive for the Xenon, well, it's a ploy to get the more expensive version to sell. And it also shows Microsoft knows they need Halo to sell copnsoles, despite what many an Xbox fanboi has stated in the past.
However, MS knows that Bungie won't have Halo 3 ready for the Xenon launch, so if this rumor is true, they're trying to have some sort of Halo at launch. They know that Halo single handedly kept the Xbox alive until Xbox Live and some really good games started coming out a year after launch (and anyone who says the Xbox could have really been selling on the other games besides Halo released in the first year is deluding themselves), so they could be hoping to do the same with "Halo 2.5"; IE keep Xenon sales going until better games start coming out for the Xenon.
Some games, such as sports games and even Halo 2, can benefit from using a hard drive for prebuffering or saving large amounts of intermediate data. Sony did not allow developers this luxury when they abandoned their hard drive plans. Microsoft did, and many games took advantage.
Many took advantage of it on the Xbox? Like what games? I can think of a handfull that do, and the vast majority do not... or are those 10-30 second load screens on most games for the Xbox actually shorter than they should be?
Most games on the Xbox, INCLUDING Microsoft first party games do not support the hard drive in the Xbox in the way that Microsoft hyped up, mainly caching to reduce load times. More games in the past year or so have, than before... but, overall, it isn't "many games" that support the caching. I can think of maybe 10 that do, out of-- what?-- a couple hundred games?
Granted, Sony allowed even less opportunity for developers to utilize the HDD, but when Microsoft doesn't even support the hard drive in the Xbox in the way they hyped up, I think that maybe people over-estimate what developers are willing to do with something like a hard drive in a console.
YOU CAN STILL GET THE OLD PS2 AND USE THE HARD DRIVE WITH IT.
For now. Sony has already, or soon will switch to just production of the PSTwo. After all, it's cheaper to produce, and they're charging the same amount of money for it.
So, fairly soon, the old PS2 model will only be found on shelves when they haven't sold because the new one is selling more.
The lack of compatibility with the HDD doesn't phase me, since I don't have it, but for my friends who do... well, if their PS2 dies for any reason (not hard to imagine), they may not be able to get a replacement that will work with the HDD.
Typically, the cost of the wire itself is an afterthought. It's the cost of labor. 200 seats, in something as nicely laid out as a typical jetliner? That's 2 bundles of wires down each side, probably under the floor. Special upholstery and jackmounts for the seatback? Assuming it was done when they were re-upholstering them anyway, maybe $15,000. Just a "pulled out of my ass guess".
Now, add in the cost of ripping out each seat, and either modifying them to have the RJ-45 jacks, or making entirely new seats to replace the old seats. It's not like they could just do it during reupholdtering, being as it would be better to put the jacks in the arm rests over just being stuck in the back of the seat in front of the passenger. Unless people really want to disconnect from the LAN every time someone has to get up to go to the bathroom or something on a long flight, and every time they return from the bathroom.
Suddenly your $15,000 per plane jumps up a bit when you start ripping out and modifying or replacing seats, eh? And it takes longer per plane, too.
Again, for planes already in service they could just add the APs and switch and be done much faster and cheaper, for those planes being built, well, they could add in the new seats with the jacks and add a negligble cost to the manufacture of the planes, and they could do the WiFi as as well.
And using 3Com equipment would make things extremely scalable... 3Com is one of the best in the buisness for that sort of thing, you know.
If I ever need it replaced, then I'll get it replaced... or by then I'll probably have moved on to a PowerBook. But I've been using WiFi with this thing exclusively since 2 days after I bought it in March (except when we were at one hotel in LA that had no WiFi and had Ethernet only, for 1 night), and have had no problems.
But, you didn't even bother to address the point of cost and other such involved with the CAT-5, and instead just decided to say that the laptop won't be able to use the WiFi.
Really shows how well you think your argument stands against basic logic and economics.
So figure 2 of them (redundancy, long planes), between $400-$800 per (depending on model), plus one of 3Com's wirless switches/routers in the plane would be more than fine.
Cost per plane, around $2500-$4000 (actually much less since they'll have contracts and be buying in bulk) for the hardware, and negligible labor costs. The more expensive part would be hooking the router/switch into the antennae on the plane, and wiring the WAPs for power (simple switch boxes in the planes' already in place electrical systems could do this for a negligible cost).
Cost of running CAT-5 cable throughout each plane, millions of dollars in dismantling the plane and then running the cable, and then setting up all the switches, and then testing it all. Even if done during high end maintenence where the plane would come apart anyway, it would still cost tons of money in CAT-5, plus all the switches (as you'll quickly reach the distance limit with the twists and turns to the seats and the rounded shape of the plane).
1-2 WAPs and 1 wirless switch, much less than your 6-8 WAPs and wireless switch. And MUCH less expensive than running wire through every plane already in service. Maybe for new planes they could put BOTH in, wires for those not with WiFi, and WiFi for those who have it and wish to use it. I know for damn sure that I'm not carrying around some CAT-5 cable with me, my laptop (which I'm on now) has only 1 wire running to it right now, the power cord. I'm not bringing any amount of CAT-5 for my perfectly capable WiFi enabled iBook, unless I know ahead of time that the hotel I am staying at does not have WiFi but does have Ethernet.
Then get a iBook or Powerbook for laptop purposes. Apple now ships EVERY new laptop with AirPort Extreme cards built in.
Plus they're lighter than Wintel laptops too, and even if you prefer Windows, you can still have an Apple OS X laptop and be fine on trips and such, unless ou need some obscure shareware or freeware program that only has a Windows version or something.
Old Sony hardware is quality stuff. My ~15+ year old 5 disk CD changer still works great, and that thing is dusty as hell.
However, Sony's more recent hardware has been crap. MY original PS needed to be upside down after just 6 months or it wouldn't read disks. My Discman died after about a year. My original PS2 died in around a year and a half, "Disc Read Error" on every single disk put in it. I hear their 32" TVs have a huge defect rate too (I have a Samsung HDTV right now, and it works great).
In years past, I would have said Sony meant "Quality." Now, Sony means "Cutting corners on manufacturing to get products out, and then completely denying there is anything wrong with them."
Apparently depending on the game, the battery life can be HORRID. Simply grahic games can go for 5 or so hours with no WiFi turned on... more graphically intense games? Ridge Racers goes for 90 mins-3 hours, depending on screen brightness and speaker use.
90 minutes!!! Next Sony will be selling protable generators to carry on your back when taking your PSP and graphically intesnive games around with you (Metal Gear Ac!d, Gran Turismo, Ridge Racers, etc.).
[sarcasm]Yep, looks like IGN is right, as always...[/sarcasm]
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If we consider a game with an average score of over 85% to be "critically acclaimed", we see Madden still falls there on the PS2. However, Madden's score has been dropping, slowly but surely since Madden 2003. Madden 2003 got a 91.3% average, 2004 got a 90.8%, and Madden 2005 has a 90.0%.
NBA Live doesn't make it above 81% average this year, so it isn't what we'll call "critically acclaimed" for this unscientific survey.
MLB 2005 also doesn't make it with only a 79.9%
NHL 2005 saw a drastic drop year over year in averages. NHL 2004 had an 84.4%, which would have almost made it, but this year's NHL 2005 has only a 77.1%.
Now, let's look at Sega's lineup for this year.
ESPN NFL 2K5 scores an 89%. A mere 1% lower than Madden, and almost 2.5% higher than last year's, which was also higher than 2K3's score. Sega's game goes up in review scores, EA's goes down. Funny that EA got this license from the NFL, eh?
ESPN NBA 2K5 gets a 84.8%, not making it "critically acclaimed" for our survey, but close, and rated higher, overall, than EA's NBA game.
ESPN NHL 2K5 gets a 87.8%. That makes it to our list, and is 10.7% higher in the ratings than EA's arcadey crap NHL game (as it should be, because EA's is arcadey crap).
There is no Major League Baseball released for ESPN this year to compare. Or, at least no reviews of ESPN Major League Baseball 2K5.
So, take Metacritic's "green" rating and toss it. Go to GameRankings and see a site dedicated to just video game reviews, and it will give you a much better idea of what reviewers thought of any game out there. And these were scores just for the PS2 versions, not the Xbox versions.
Arcadey crap. Increase the difficulty means: 1. Your players skate slower, the computer controlled team skates faster. 2. Your goalie gets dumber (lets through the easiest of shots ALL the time). 3. If the CPU team touches you when you have the puck, you lose the puck; you have to send them off their skates to get it off of their players.
Sorry, if I want arcade hocky, then I'll go to EA. If I want a more realistic game, I'll stick with Sega's NHL games. I haven't looked back since NHL 2K3.
Look on metacritic, how many of EA's games are "in the green"...that comment is just a joke. There's a reason why they sell the most games.
There's a reason, yes, but it isn't because they make the best games. It's blind brand loyalty. Madden could be exactly the same for a few years in a row, with just roster changes, and it will still sell like mad. Why? Because people are used to buying Madden. They'll buy it every year just because it's Madden. Even if they don't conciously think they're buying it because of brand loyalty, they'll still run out and buy it every year like the sheeple they are.
It wouldn't matter if tons of reviewers panned Madden and said to go out and buy GameCompanyX's NFL game because it was so much better... Madden would still rule the roost because it is Madden.
The only game series you mentioned that they put out that was even good was Def Jam Vendetta and Fight for NY. Well, I never tried The Sims or Battlefeild 1942, but of the others (which I have played), the only good series is the Def Jam series, and that has more to do with AKI developing it than EA publishing it.
Makes it damn near impossible to host Internet games on either my PC, Mac, PS2, or Xbox.
So I joined another free Usenet server outside of Comcast's, also because some of my gaming groups got removed from GigaNews' servers, which pissed me off to no end. These were text only groups to begin with, and one day I just went to check them and they were no longer carried by GigaNews.
Besides, GigaNews' retention sucks. On the @Home news server, I had retention going back many weeks... on GigaNews I had to log on practically every day if I wanted to read stuff because their retention is like a week to 10 days. I'm not a Usenet junkie, I like to check maybe a few times a month unless I'm in a conversation or critiquing people's 3D landscapes/creations. GigaNews simply didn't cut it for me. My new server has a better download cap, and better retention than GigaNews (although still less than I'd like for retention-- I just logged on for the first time in a month, and responses to some of my posts are now gone for me to read... Google it is for them).
Little? No.
Would I kill you and take it from you if I had the option? Hell yes.
I should have just saved up for another month and got the 17" PowerBook over my 14" iBook. I'd have more RAM and a better video card too.
An example would be my WWE Day of Reckoning review. Typed out it was about 7 pages, but most of it goes into the controls, and create-a-wrestler modes, and touches on how the story works without giving it away. Or my Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords review, also long.
Then there's some games that I can get the whole point accross in a fairly concise review, like my Midway Arcade Treasures 2 review.
I prefer to let the readers know as much as possible without any spoilers. I realize some of my reviews may be long winded, but that's just me and my writing style. Some people like the reviews, some don't. And that's how it always will be as well.
No self respecting 18-35 year old is going to start playing a DS on the train. It looks like a childs toy because, in essence, that's what it is.
Which would mean you aren't self respecting of yourself, since you not only say you have a DS but have pulled it out in public, right?
The PSP looks cool - I've yet to use mine without generating a crowd of admiring observers. In comparison I've had my DS for over a month more and it's never generated anything like the same interest.
So, you try and look cool by playing handhelds? Or do you try and show off that you have money to burn because of import prices to the UK? The PSP looks to be going for £196 for the standard pack, and £228 for the value pack, plus shipping, plus a potential customs duty, plus handling fee for UK courier, plus 17.5% of the price (for tax? not sure, just going by what I know from some UK importers I know)... that's a pretty hefty amount of money for a system just to have it 4 months before UK launch. How many games do you have for it, too? The price I see for games is US $59.90 (£32.0668).
Figure the DS is probably going for £100-£150 import price plus everything mentioned above (unless you can find a local import shop, but then they still charge more than the online importers for the console, but none of the extra fees are there after the price); plus games and all that jazz. Man, you must have money to burn, since you're importing electronics all the time.
When Sony released the original Playstation they made gaming acceptable to the mainstream. Nintendo and Sega were/are seen as toy companies - Sony were the acceptable face of videogaming.
Yeah, and look at the signal to noise ratio on the PlayStation line of consoles too. Sony brought us shovelware and then some. And look at what Sony has made the biggest selling franchise: Madden. Joy. Now there's frat boys and morons out there playing games who never would have touched them before the PSOne-- and I'd rather they weren't playing the games. That's the SpikeTV crowd, that's the MTV crowd, thats the crowd where if there was some genetic disease that would kill off stupid people, they'd all die.
Sony will market the PSP as a portable entertainment device - a machine that plays music, videos and (whisper it) games.
A device where you have to buy all sorts of over-priced Sony made or licensed products to use those multimedia features. Memory Stick Duo prices are outrageous for their sizes. And UMD movie disks haven't seen a US or UK and European price yet. Plus, who in their right mind is going to buy a movie a second time just to watch it on their PSP, especially when the UMD version won't have the special features and such available on DVD?
You made a good troll attempt, really... but we have yet to see how well the PSP will do in all the markets. The PSP hasn't sold out in Japan, in fact, the numbers showed it didn't even sell through 71% of its total shipped number in 2004 in Japan... and we won't know how it will do in the US and Europe, yet, because we STILL don't know the US/European price, or launch date, or price of games.
There are 8 MB memory cards available... alas, as others have pointed out, some games have save files too large to fit on them. KotOR and KotOR II saves are around 25 MB each.
assume you can copy save games between XBoxs when they're connected to the LAN too. This doesn't come up too often, but still - it does come up occasionally.
Actually, you can't. Ironic being as network gaming was what they pushed before Live, and yet you can't transfer settings or saves over the network. Oddly enough, transferring over a LAN is something so simple, even crap OSes Windows 95 can do it, but the Xbox with it's modified Win 2K kernel can't.
Untrue, actually. The upcomming Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict looks better than Halo 2 (IMHO) and seems to run much smoother than the final release of Halo 2 from what I saw at E3.
The problem with Halo 2 isn't that it stretches the Xbox to its limits, it's that even with 2 years of working on the game, Halo 2 was still rushed out. That's why there's all the problems of texture pop in, in-game engine cinemas having horrid pop in (buildings, textures, characters who are speaking, etc), and bugs that allow for massive exploit cheating in Xbox Live multiplayer-- that Bungie can't fix now that it's out because of how they developed the downloadable content part.
There's an interview in the newest EGM with them, and lo and behold it comes to light that the geometry problems in multiplayer maps (specifically reaching through solid objects to grab items) was discovered in March of 2003, but due to rushing to add new features and to meet the date MS said it would be released, the fixing of these problems had to be cut from development (over 18 months after discovery).
It's unfortunate that Bungie has become a true Microsoft shop: features first, bug fixes later, if ever.
"Fable" was awarded "Best Role-Playing Game" at last month's Spike TV's second annual Video Game Awards.
Do you REALLY want to mention that the Spike TV Winners Bought and Paid For By Advertisers Video Game Awards are really the way to say how good a crap ass RPG like Fable is?
Or in more cases, "Why should I download RealPlayer when it sucks? Oh yeah, because if I want to watch certain streams or listen to certain audio streams online I need it." or "Why should I download WMP for Mac when it sucks on the Mac? Oh yeah, because if I want to watch certain streams or listen to certain audio streams online I need it"
You know, the same reasons people use when they get QuickTime or RealPlayer on Windows. My iBook has WMP and RealPlayer, but thery're only for certain things (RealPlayer for NPR's audio, for example), for music I'll use iTunes. As a music player, it is fine, and it has a great search feature as well-- which the other players simply don't have. And other popular players on Windows simply aren't on the Mac, like WinAmp, so Mac users will just use iTunes (and the hack to let it play Ogg Vorbis files if they have them, like me).
I did just this a little over a year ago. My previous TV, a 20+ year old set with only RF in, had done me well for a while, but the picture tube was going (green bleeding into everything).
So, I saw an ad in Best Buy for a nice sized HDTV monitor (no built in tuner). So I saved up my extra cash for a few weeks, and went and checked the week before I would have enough, they had an open box display unit for less than the new ones, so I figured I'd get that when I came back the next week.
Alas it was gone, so I had to get the new one, but even so I got a Samsung 27" normal ratio HDTV monitor with 2 component inputs, S-video, and a few composite inputs for under $700.
Sure, I would have liked a bigger TV, but my space was limited, and the picture on DVDs and and my GameCube and Xbox hooked in through component (PS2 on S-video) is great (TV reception sucks, but my whole house is like that). But, hot damn, this TV is fucking heavy! The manual says it is 100 pounds. Needless to say, it's been moved once, and isn't moving again for quite some time.
False. Go to the SEC website and check Microsoft's quarterly and anual financial reports. The Xbox division is part of the Home and Entertainment Division... and since the Xbox was launched in november of 2001, the Home and Entertainment division has lost over $2 billion.
Since the Home and Entertainment Division is not making more money than they are spending, and the Xbox and its games account for most of that divisions revenues and losses, it is quite clear to anyone who knows basic algebra, that Microsoft is not making any money on the Xbox.
Microsoft's last quarterly report clearly shows another loss on the Home and Entertainment Division for the quarter ending Setember 30, 2004 of $126 million on earnings from the division of $601 million. They didn't lose as much money as the same quarter of 2003 ($181 million lost), but they still lose over $100 million... yet again. If you check over their past few quarterly reports, you'll easily see the Home and Entertainment division losing over $100 million per quarter, pretty much consistently for over a year now, with a few of those quarters topping $200 million lost and one or two going over $300 million lost.
The money is in the games and licensing.
Yes, it is. Too bad Microsoft isn't actually making any money off of these things. If it wasn't for Windows and Office, they wouldn't be making the billions they make... although MSN showed a profit again, which is rare.
"Perhaps, the largest success story of this generation would have to be Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox. The game continues to top the charts after nearly three years on the market. Why? Because it features polished gameplay and a completely original world and story; it was fresh, it was new, it was fun, and it was immersive."
Fresh? New? It's the spiritual successor to Bungie's Marathon series, and another FPS where you are against aliens, hardly fresh or new. It sold so well because for the first year, there wasn't much of anything else for the Xbox for the masses to embrace.
I'd agree it was immersive, the first time through, but after that the multiplayer was the only reason to pick it up again, certainly not the single player (unless you wanted to beat it on harder difficulty levels)... but the only difference in the ending is on Legendary, and it's a dumb but funny change. And, honestly, except at a friend's house for LAN games, I haven't touched the original Halo since I beat it. I've also pretty much stopped playing Halo 2, even online, because there's a ton of issues that need to be fixed.
Then the obvious solution would have been to simply give Halo 2 more time for development, and probably make it a Xenon launch title. We'll find out in May, but it seems ever more certain MS plans on launching the Xenon in late 2005.
What would another year have meant to people who wanted a full fledged sequel to Halo, and on a system that can do more than the Xbox? Maybe on the Xenon the in-game engine cinemas wouldn't have so much pop-in and textures would also not just pop into existance when you get close enough to them (or at least not as noticeably).
Of course, Microsoft just wanted another big game on the Xbox (the Xbox does have the least amount of million unit selling games, after all), and to get people on Xbox Live... and that year would have been time wasted for the ever important subscriptions to try and make some money off the Xbox.
I know I was disappointed in Halo 2, overall; especially when it became known that Bungie didn't even freaking check their geomotry in levels to make sure you couldn't reach through what should be solid objects and grab weapons and flags for multiplayer maps.
But, I doubt I'll be spending the extra money on a Xenon with the hard drive just to get something I already paid for this past November.
For the Madden fans, the PS2 had Madden at launch. The GameCube had Rogue Leader.
But, the point being that none of the other games for the Xbox's entire first year would have carried the Xbox or sold Xboxes. And, at the time, there was no promise of potentially really good games coming out, either. And without Halo to sell Xboxes, there wouldn't be the good games that are out for the Xbox now, because developers and publishers wouldn't have gone for it.
None of the other consoles had any decent games in their launch window
As I said, for the Madden fans there was Madden. but, for me, you are correct, there was no good launch games or games within the launch window for the PS2. Then there was the promise of MGS and FF and Gran Turismo to keep people interested.
For the GC there was Rogue Leader on launch day, and Super Smash Bros. Melee came out within a few weeks of launch, both of which sold well, and were more of a reason to have a GC at launch than Luigi's Mansion. And then the promise of a new Mario and Zelda and such would keep people interested in the GC.
But, for the whole first year, the Xbox had Halo, and not really much of anything else (except to me, with JSRF, but I'm a minority there). What was promised? Malice? A game that came out 2 years late and sucked anyway? Fable? A game that was not only in development forever and a day, but also sucked hardcore when it was finally released (again, I'm a minority here, but I hated Fable, and was glad it was over in less than 20 hours)?
There's nothing wrong with having a good launch title, but people really need to open their eyes and see that without Halo, the Xbox would not have the good games it does have now, nor would it be selling anywhere near the rate it does. And for one game to carry a console for a full year is not a good thing, really.
Of course, the hard drive version will cost more than the non-hard drive flash memory version... so if they really are putting a Halo 2.5 pre-loaded onto the hard drive for the Xenon, well, it's a ploy to get the more expensive version to sell. And it also shows Microsoft knows they need Halo to sell copnsoles, despite what many an Xbox fanboi has stated in the past.
However, MS knows that Bungie won't have Halo 3 ready for the Xenon launch, so if this rumor is true, they're trying to have some sort of Halo at launch. They know that Halo single handedly kept the Xbox alive until Xbox Live and some really good games started coming out a year after launch (and anyone who says the Xbox could have really been selling on the other games besides Halo released in the first year is deluding themselves), so they could be hoping to do the same with "Halo 2.5"; IE keep Xenon sales going until better games start coming out for the Xenon.
Many took advantage of it on the Xbox? Like what games? I can think of a handfull that do, and the vast majority do not... or are those 10-30 second load screens on most games for the Xbox actually shorter than they should be?
Most games on the Xbox, INCLUDING Microsoft first party games do not support the hard drive in the Xbox in the way that Microsoft hyped up, mainly caching to reduce load times. More games in the past year or so have, than before... but, overall, it isn't "many games" that support the caching. I can think of maybe 10 that do, out of-- what?-- a couple hundred games?
Granted, Sony allowed even less opportunity for developers to utilize the HDD, but when Microsoft doesn't even support the hard drive in the Xbox in the way they hyped up, I think that maybe people over-estimate what developers are willing to do with something like a hard drive in a console.
For now. Sony has already, or soon will switch to just production of the PSTwo. After all, it's cheaper to produce, and they're charging the same amount of money for it.
So, fairly soon, the old PS2 model will only be found on shelves when they haven't sold because the new one is selling more.
The lack of compatibility with the HDD doesn't phase me, since I don't have it, but for my friends who do... well, if their PS2 dies for any reason (not hard to imagine), they may not be able to get a replacement that will work with the HDD.
Now, add in the cost of ripping out each seat, and either modifying them to have the RJ-45 jacks, or making entirely new seats to replace the old seats. It's not like they could just do it during reupholdtering, being as it would be better to put the jacks in the arm rests over just being stuck in the back of the seat in front of the passenger. Unless people really want to disconnect from the LAN every time someone has to get up to go to the bathroom or something on a long flight, and every time they return from the bathroom.
Suddenly your $15,000 per plane jumps up a bit when you start ripping out and modifying or replacing seats, eh? And it takes longer per plane, too.
Again, for planes already in service they could just add the APs and switch and be done much faster and cheaper, for those planes being built, well, they could add in the new seats with the jacks and add a negligble cost to the manufacture of the planes, and they could do the WiFi as as well.
And using 3Com equipment would make things extremely scalable... 3Com is one of the best in the buisness for that sort of thing, you know.
But, you didn't even bother to address the point of cost and other such involved with the CAT-5, and instead just decided to say that the laptop won't be able to use the WiFi.
Really shows how well you think your argument stands against basic logic and economics.
Not if they go better than consumer grade wireless. 3Com provides access points that support up to 253 simultaneous connections up to 100 meters. And that's their low and mid grade WAP. Their high grade can also do 108mbps and support 253 users within 100 meters.
So figure 2 of them (redundancy, long planes), between $400-$800 per (depending on model), plus one of 3Com's wirless switches/routers in the plane would be more than fine.
Cost per plane, around $2500-$4000 (actually much less since they'll have contracts and be buying in bulk) for the hardware, and negligible labor costs. The more expensive part would be hooking the router/switch into the antennae on the plane, and wiring the WAPs for power (simple switch boxes in the planes' already in place electrical systems could do this for a negligible cost).
Cost of running CAT-5 cable throughout each plane, millions of dollars in dismantling the plane and then running the cable, and then setting up all the switches, and then testing it all. Even if done during high end maintenence where the plane would come apart anyway, it would still cost tons of money in CAT-5, plus all the switches (as you'll quickly reach the distance limit with the twists and turns to the seats and the rounded shape of the plane).
1-2 WAPs and 1 wirless switch, much less than your 6-8 WAPs and wireless switch. And MUCH less expensive than running wire through every plane already in service. Maybe for new planes they could put BOTH in, wires for those not with WiFi, and WiFi for those who have it and wish to use it. I know for damn sure that I'm not carrying around some CAT-5 cable with me, my laptop (which I'm on now) has only 1 wire running to it right now, the power cord. I'm not bringing any amount of CAT-5 for my perfectly capable WiFi enabled iBook, unless I know ahead of time that the hotel I am staying at does not have WiFi but does have Ethernet.
Plus they're lighter than Wintel laptops too, and even if you prefer Windows, you can still have an Apple OS X laptop and be fine on trips and such, unless ou need some obscure shareware or freeware program that only has a Windows version or something.
However, Sony's more recent hardware has been crap. MY original PS needed to be upside down after just 6 months or it wouldn't read disks. My Discman died after about a year. My original PS2 died in around a year and a half, "Disc Read Error" on every single disk put in it. I hear their 32" TVs have a huge defect rate too (I have a Samsung HDTV right now, and it works great).
In years past, I would have said Sony meant "Quality." Now, Sony means "Cutting corners on manufacturing to get products out, and then completely denying there is anything wrong with them."
Apparently depending on the game, the battery life can be HORRID. Simply grahic games can go for 5 or so hours with no WiFi turned on... more graphically intense games? Ridge Racers goes for 90 mins-3 hours, depending on screen brightness and speaker use.
90 minutes!!! Next Sony will be selling protable generators to carry on your back when taking your PSP and graphically intesnive games around with you (Metal Gear Ac!d, Gran Turismo, Ridge Racers, etc.).
[sarcasm]Yep, looks like IGN is right, as always...[/sarcasm]