It also lead to music and sound that was often far too compressed, not to mention terrible FMV quality (which I am not crazy about as a game feature necessarily, but some games really do need it and benefit from it).
It also lead to some major games just being too big for the Gamecube. The recent Grand Theft Auto games required multiple gigs of space, and a game like that simply doesn't work with disc swapping...
Because they tried that already with the Xbox 1. It wasn't really a bad decision (the Xbox 1 is currently tops in the US console sales charts last time I checked), but it was an expensive and inefficient one. A PPC based console will likely just be cheaper to make, and probably more than powerful enough. After all, x86 compability doesn't really get them anywhere special, and in some ways it could actually be a small disadvantage.
I imagine another good reason to use PPC is that it is an easier architecture to do the extensive multicore stuff Sony and MS want for their consoles.
I do however write some numerical code in C and Fortran. I noticed that if I call a variable state_count, half an hour later I may think that I called it state_cnt, or st_count. If I called it scnt, I would simply have to remember that cryptic name, and had it right every time.
I think the main key with that is just to be very consistent in your variable names. I make it a habit of using full words 99% of the time in my variables, for example. A better IDE might really help, too.
With the Xbox2 using multi-core processors I don't think MS has anything to worry about. It will probably be released this year, and developer support is already extremely widespread. I imagine the various DirectX improvements MS makes for the Xbox2 will eventually filter into the same dev environment that PC games use.
But it will happen regardless of this PC chicken-and-egg problem because of the consoles. Both MS' and Sony's next-gen consoles will use multi-core CPUs (Nintendo probably will as well). Assuming this will give some kind of performance advantage (and at least in some areas like AI and physics it almost definitely will), PC-exclusive devs will have to follow suit soon enough.
Ah yes, those libertarians at that "small midwestern school" are good people to go to for advice on how to effectively limit corporate power!;)
Re:What in the World?
on
Ask mc chris
·
· Score: 1
Ah, so your complaints was just standard anti-rap music bitching. I wish you had made that clear before, so I didn't waste the time reading your comments searching for some kind of insight or legitimate criticism...
I still think that before the consoles have even been revealed is just too early to really guess anything. Even Revolution might end up being the obvious front runner after E3. Just a few more months to wait...
Um... no. The difference between my example and yours is this. My example assumes that the X-Box 2 is out there but not huge, and so they pull this stunt to try to undermine Sony's launch which would otherwise (and I say even if MS does this) huge. And that's why it's so silly, and why people are calling you on it. You have no reasonable way to guess that the Xbox2 will not be huge right now (we don't even have a launch date, real hardware specs, a list of launch games, or even knowledge of its controller). It very could 'pull a PS1', especially considering the massive momentum the Xbox 1 has in the US, Canada, and much of Europe right now.
That being said, DOA's fighting system is nothing to write home about either since it's just some fast paced dial-a-combo, luck countering fighting game. Oh yeah, and its eyecandy.
Please, please, please learn to play DOA. Your claim is ridiculous to anyone who has spent only a moderate time with even older DOAs like 2. DOA2U is far from the best or deepest in the series (that would be a tie between DOA3.1 and DOA3.2), but it does have online play. Learn one character a little, fight some decent players online for a few hours, and see just how nonsensical your criticism is. (Hell, just check the leaderboard - how could it be luck-based if certain players so obviously dominate the game consistently?)
These kind of complaints from ignorant gamers were more easily tolerated before, because it was extremely hard to find good competitors in the DOA games. But that doesn't wash anymore, and most people that play it online a bit realize just how wrong they are. Look at Gamespot's Greg Kasavin - he absolutely hated DOA before DOA2U, and intentionally did stuff like take on the DOA3 review because he thought the series was overrated and shallow (yes, he admitted this on the message boards). And even he had to eat crow when he finally played some semi-serious competition in the comparatively shallow DOA2U. Sure, go on disliking the series, but at least do it for a reason that sort of makes sense. (In your case, maybe "I only play 2D fighters because I think they are the deepest." I won't argue against that common assumption here, though - that seems to get into holy war territory really quickly.:D)
So anyway, Itagaki is basically doing the exact same thing he did when Tekken4 came out, and all he's doing is just stirring some riot, and making some name out for DOA.
Actually, Itagaki is just doing what Namco did when DOA1 came out. They released some ads in Japan to try and dissuade people from trying out this new fighting game series. Obviously he is still a little pissed about it (though he has commented that he really enjoyed Tekken 3, so he isn't being just purely irrational about his anger). There are plenty of legitimate reasons to complain about Tekken 4 (namely the complete lack of balance - Jin easily dominates), just like there are about Tekken 5 (uh, namely the even worse lack of balance - does Namco even test these games? Infinite combos all over the place, Heihachi being completely ridiculously overpowered, etc.). Just because Itagaki doesn't always mention these specific issues doesn't mean most of his readers don't know about this obvious stuff, especially in the Japanese fighting fanbase.
First they put in all of these half-finished "features", then they take them right out again. Tag fights, elevation differences, walls. I don't know if it's because they're impatient, or because they lack the ability, but no matter the reason those guys are a pretty weird bunch.
Walls, elevation differences, and tag fights are all actual gameplay elements. Tekken has yet to do any of these as well as Sega or Tecmo have. That was as purely factual a statement about gameplay as you can get - Itagaki didn't need to breakdown specifics because they are obvious to anyone who has played the three games for any minor length of time.
(This is a big problem with Tekken fans in my experience, incidentally - most of them only play Tekken, and are then shocked and confused when someone criticizes their games in comparison to the other fighting games out there.)
Nintendo's artists created a unique look for the characters in Wind Waker, but the focus of it all is the eyes on the three main characters, Link, Aryll and Tetra, which are like white footballs, topped with eyebrows, with a large black circle in the middle. The eyes are what, in my mind, defines the look of these characters, and this screenshot apes them pretty much exactly.
Which itself seemed copied from the Samurai Jack cartoon. Check out the first episode, with Jack as a little kid - his face is the spitting image of Link in Wind Waker. I couldn't believe it when I saw the rerun on TV for the first time (this was after Wind Waker's release).
The rest of the visuals are fairly remicient as well, though, like you pointed out.
Yeah, load times on the PS2 are killer. I am contemplating throwing in that hard drive loader program into mine - I guess it massively reduces the load times. The Xbox and GC are both pretty good with load times, however (most of their games are certainly worlds better with loading than what I have been finding with recent PC games like HL2).
I really like the S Controller for the Xbox - it feels more comfortable in my non-tiny Western hands, which is just not true of stuff like the PS2 pads. Needless to say, it has a lot of very PC-like games available for it, but also with a lot of the 'exotic' game varieties you find from countries that don't release PC games in the West (ex: the Korean-made Kingdom Under Fire: the Crusaders is a truly excellent action/strategy game, very distinct from Western RTS games, but something most PC gamers would love). And though it isn't as great as the PC in this area, 99% of Xbox games at least support the lower end of HDTV resolutions, which makes the resolution "good enough" IMO. (And in case you weren't aware, make sure your consoles are connected to your television via S-video at minimum - the clarity boost from the stock composite cables they come with is astounding.) For what it's worth, I know that when a hardcore PC gaming friend of mine a couple years ago got an Xbox, he said to me, "the Xbox has restored my faith in gaming." So you might want to give it a shot.
Of course, a lot of other PC gamers seem to instead find the Gamecube a better fit, mainly because of how not PC-style most of its game are. So that might also be something to try. Maybe your problem with consoles is more the PS2 than anything.
(And you can find some decent third-party pads that are bigger, smaller, or whatever you prefer for the consoles. So that might be something to try too if you don't like the stock controllers.)
Actually most Rockstar games take quite a while longer than expected. How long has their Warriors game been in development?
Most franchises can afford to be late. Only in the sports genre do many players actually care that much about how late the game is. If they like the franchise and the new game is decent, they are going to grab the game no matter when it comes out. (The only exception is when too many other games come out at once, of course - so many of the 'on-time' games last year actually suffered simply because of that.)
Nobody likes games with graphics that are even slightly behind the state of the art, so you have to stay on schedule.
Bullshit. Absolutely huge amounts of games are successful without truly state of the art graphics - in fact nearly every successful game fits into that category.
Hell, how would games on systems like the GBA or PS2 even sell anymore otherwise?
It was actually the Quake 3 Arena engine, IIRC. (Which you probably knew, since you mentioned them making it single-player focued.)
Something important to note though is that many Medal of Honor games don't use that engine - both the originals on the PS1 and very latest versions use various custom engines.
I understand where you are coming from, but I really don't agree. Sure, gigantic percentages of Internet browsers use IE. But even a lot of the more casual users still install various search bars that help block pop-ups. It's something enough casual users want that the news of the existence of the simpler tools spreads fairly rapidly. I see no reason why something similar won't happen with more severe techniques like a hosts file. The user doesn't need to know how it works, they just need to know that if they install this useful tool, ads go away.
Yeah, it will never be 100% of browsers blocking ads (and I have no problem with that). But even 20-30% is a big hit in potential audience for the obtrusive advertisers. I wouldn't be surprised if is close to that number today even.
Just in my admittedly personal experiences, I don't know many even casual net users that see pop-ups anymore. Sure, a lot of them were pointed in the direction of stuff like Firefox by me or other 'elites' - but I am constantly surprised to find that many of them learned about and used other tools for the same purpose basically on their own. Blocking obtrusive ads is slowly becoming almost as common a PC task as web-browsing, and I expect this to continue.
Your analysis is spot-on, but the ultimate issue is that it will become basically unworkable to serve these obtrusive ads. Wall Street may like the technique, but if the browsers don't allow them it won't really matter.
Those are 'good' ideas (next time keep them to your self!:D), but I imagine some kind of defense could use similar techniques. A dynamically updated Hosts file could be used to fight dynamic ad server IPs, etc. The important thing is probably just that it could get to be very, very difficult for the obtrusive ad people - enough that it makes more sense to just be polite about the ads, a la Google.
You are ascribing intelligent design to the blind watchmaker of economics. The "ad industry" is roughly as unified as "the American People".
Well yeah, of course. I regretted my wording of that sentence from almost the moment I posted it. I suppose I should have said "the ultimate plan of certain elements of the ad industry" or something like that - but my writing style is already so...wordy as it is, I really try and err on the side of too vague. I was initially talking about the ad people who use pop-ups/unders, so I hoped it was clear that I didn't really mean all ad people. Obviously I went too far that time.
Slashdot Mirror
It also lead to music and sound that was often far too compressed, not to mention terrible FMV quality (which I am not crazy about as a game feature necessarily, but some games really do need it and benefit from it).
It also lead to some major games just being too big for the Gamecube. The recent Grand Theft Auto games required multiple gigs of space, and a game like that simply doesn't work with disc swapping...
Just with lots and lots of fanservice featuring a girl that looks like she is maybe 10 years old...
(shudders)
Maybe that kind of stuff went away as the series progressed, but it was pretty prominent in the first episode.
But you don't think stuff like that does alienate developers? I certainly do.
Because they tried that already with the Xbox 1. It wasn't really a bad decision (the Xbox 1 is currently tops in the US console sales charts last time I checked), but it was an expensive and inefficient one. A PPC based console will likely just be cheaper to make, and probably more than powerful enough. After all, x86 compability doesn't really get them anywhere special, and in some ways it could actually be a small disadvantage.
I imagine another good reason to use PPC is that it is an easier architecture to do the extensive multicore stuff Sony and MS want for their consoles.
I do however write some numerical code in C and Fortran. I noticed that if I call a variable state_count, half an hour later I may think that I called it state_cnt, or st_count. If I called it scnt, I would simply have to remember that cryptic name, and had it right every time.
I think the main key with that is just to be very consistent in your variable names. I make it a habit of using full words 99% of the time in my variables, for example. A better IDE might really help, too.
With the Xbox2 using multi-core processors I don't think MS has anything to worry about. It will probably be released this year, and developer support is already extremely widespread. I imagine the various DirectX improvements MS makes for the Xbox2 will eventually filter into the same dev environment that PC games use.
But it will happen regardless of this PC chicken-and-egg problem because of the consoles. Both MS' and Sony's next-gen consoles will use multi-core CPUs (Nintendo probably will as well). Assuming this will give some kind of performance advantage (and at least in some areas like AI and physics it almost definitely will), PC-exclusive devs will have to follow suit soon enough.
Oh, please don't use her as an example. You are welcome to think she was a great person or whatever you want, but her life was filled with morally questionable acts of all kinds. You simply cannot reasonably use her as an example of a "morally spotless life". This is a very interesting interview with Christopher Hitchens about his various 'exposés' about her. It paints a more complete picture in some ways.
Ah yes, those libertarians at that "small midwestern school" are good people to go to for advice on how to effectively limit corporate power! ;)
Ah, so your complaints was just standard anti-rap music bitching. I wish you had made that clear before, so I didn't waste the time reading your comments searching for some kind of insight or legitimate criticism...
Make sure you grab the mp3s, too. The rhythym isn't completely clear just from reading the lyrics.
I still think that before the consoles have even been revealed is just too early to really guess anything. Even Revolution might end up being the obvious front runner after E3. Just a few more months to wait...
Um... no. The difference between my example and yours is this. My example assumes that the X-Box 2 is out there but not huge, and so they pull this stunt to try to undermine Sony's launch which would otherwise (and I say even if MS does this) huge.
And that's why it's so silly, and why people are calling you on it. You have no reasonable way to guess that the Xbox2 will not be huge right now (we don't even have a launch date, real hardware specs, a list of launch games, or even knowledge of its controller). It very could 'pull a PS1', especially considering the massive momentum the Xbox 1 has in the US, Canada, and much of Europe right now.
But wasn't ...Halo 2 received with a collossal "meh"?
It really wasn't. It also still remains the most popular Xbox Live game even now, so it obviously has some longevity.
I would agree that it was hardly a perfect game, but it's crazy to suggest that most players were unhappy with it.
These kind of complaints from ignorant gamers were more easily tolerated before, because it was extremely hard to find good competitors in the DOA games. But that doesn't wash anymore, and most people that play it online a bit realize just how wrong they are. Look at Gamespot's Greg Kasavin - he absolutely hated DOA before DOA2U, and intentionally did stuff like take on the DOA3 review because he thought the series was overrated and shallow (yes, he admitted this on the message boards). And even he had to eat crow when he finally played some semi-serious competition in the comparatively shallow DOA2U. Sure, go on disliking the series, but at least do it for a reason that sort of makes sense. (In your case, maybe "I only play 2D fighters because I think they are the deepest." I won't argue against that common assumption here, though - that seems to get into holy war territory really quickly.
Actually, Itagaki is just doing what Namco did when DOA1 came out. They released some ads in Japan to try and dissuade people from trying out this new fighting game series. Obviously he is still a little pissed about it (though he has commented that he really enjoyed Tekken 3, so he isn't being just purely irrational about his anger). There are plenty of legitimate reasons to complain about Tekken 4 (namely the complete lack of balance - Jin easily dominates), just like there are about Tekken 5 (uh, namely the even worse lack of balance - does Namco even test these games? Infinite combos all over the place, Heihachi being completely ridiculously overpowered, etc.). Just because Itagaki doesn't always mention these specific issues doesn't mean most of his readers don't know about this obvious stuff, especially in the Japanese fighting fanbase.
Walls, elevation differences, and tag fights are all actual gameplay elements. Tekken has yet to do any of these as well as Sega or Tecmo have. That was as purely factual a statement about gameplay as you can get - Itagaki didn't need to breakdown specifics because they are obvious to anyone who has played the three games for any minor length of time.
(This is a big problem with Tekken fans in my experience, incidentally - most of them only play Tekken, and are then shocked and confused when someone criticizes their games in comparison to the other fighting games out there.)
Nintendo's artists created a unique look for the characters in Wind Waker, but the focus of it all is the eyes on the three main characters, Link, Aryll and Tetra, which are like white footballs, topped with eyebrows, with a large black circle in the middle. The eyes are what, in my mind, defines the look of these characters, and this screenshot apes them pretty much exactly.
Which itself seemed copied from the Samurai Jack cartoon. Check out the first episode, with Jack as a little kid - his face is the spitting image of Link in Wind Waker. I couldn't believe it when I saw the rerun on TV for the first time (this was after Wind Waker's release).
The rest of the visuals are fairly remicient as well, though, like you pointed out.
Yeah, load times on the PS2 are killer. I am contemplating throwing in that hard drive loader program into mine - I guess it massively reduces the load times. The Xbox and GC are both pretty good with load times, however (most of their games are certainly worlds better with loading than what I have been finding with recent PC games like HL2).
I really like the S Controller for the Xbox - it feels more comfortable in my non-tiny Western hands, which is just not true of stuff like the PS2 pads. Needless to say, it has a lot of very PC-like games available for it, but also with a lot of the 'exotic' game varieties you find from countries that don't release PC games in the West (ex: the Korean-made Kingdom Under Fire: the Crusaders is a truly excellent action/strategy game, very distinct from Western RTS games, but something most PC gamers would love). And though it isn't as great as the PC in this area, 99% of Xbox games at least support the lower end of HDTV resolutions, which makes the resolution "good enough" IMO. (And in case you weren't aware, make sure your consoles are connected to your television via S-video at minimum - the clarity boost from the stock composite cables they come with is astounding.) For what it's worth, I know that when a hardcore PC gaming friend of mine a couple years ago got an Xbox, he said to me, "the Xbox has restored my faith in gaming." So you might want to give it a shot.
Of course, a lot of other PC gamers seem to instead find the Gamecube a better fit, mainly because of how not PC-style most of its game are. So that might also be something to try. Maybe your problem with consoles is more the PS2 than anything.
(And you can find some decent third-party pads that are bigger, smaller, or whatever you prefer for the consoles. So that might be something to try too if you don't like the stock controllers.)
Actually most Rockstar games take quite a while longer than expected. How long has their Warriors game been in development?
Most franchises can afford to be late. Only in the sports genre do many players actually care that much about how late the game is. If they like the franchise and the new game is decent, they are going to grab the game no matter when it comes out. (The only exception is when too many other games come out at once, of course - so many of the 'on-time' games last year actually suffered simply because of that.)
Nobody likes games with graphics that are even slightly behind the state of the art, so you have to stay on schedule.
Bullshit. Absolutely huge amounts of games are successful without truly state of the art graphics - in fact nearly every successful game fits into that category.
Hell, how would games on systems like the GBA or PS2 even sell anymore otherwise?
It was actually the Quake 3 Arena engine, IIRC. (Which you probably knew, since you mentioned them making it single-player focued.)
Something important to note though is that many Medal of Honor games don't use that engine - both the originals on the PS1 and very latest versions use various custom engines.
I understand where you are coming from, but I really don't agree. Sure, gigantic percentages of Internet browsers use IE. But even a lot of the more casual users still install various search bars that help block pop-ups. It's something enough casual users want that the news of the existence of the simpler tools spreads fairly rapidly. I see no reason why something similar won't happen with more severe techniques like a hosts file. The user doesn't need to know how it works, they just need to know that if they install this useful tool, ads go away.
Yeah, it will never be 100% of browsers blocking ads (and I have no problem with that). But even 20-30% is a big hit in potential audience for the obtrusive advertisers. I wouldn't be surprised if is close to that number today even.
Just in my admittedly personal experiences, I don't know many even casual net users that see pop-ups anymore. Sure, a lot of them were pointed in the direction of stuff like Firefox by me or other 'elites' - but I am constantly surprised to find that many of them learned about and used other tools for the same purpose basically on their own. Blocking obtrusive ads is slowly becoming almost as common a PC task as web-browsing, and I expect this to continue.
Your analysis is spot-on, but the ultimate issue is that it will become basically unworkable to serve these obtrusive ads. Wall Street may like the technique, but if the browsers don't allow them it won't really matter.
Those are 'good' ideas (next time keep them to your self! :D), but I imagine some kind of defense could use similar techniques. A dynamically updated Hosts file could be used to fight dynamic ad server IPs, etc. The important thing is probably just that it could get to be very, very difficult for the obtrusive ad people - enough that it makes more sense to just be polite about the ads, a la Google.
You are ascribing intelligent design to the blind watchmaker of economics. The "ad industry" is roughly as unified as "the American People".
Well yeah, of course. I regretted my wording of that sentence from almost the moment I posted it. I suppose I should have said "the ultimate plan of certain elements of the ad industry" or something like that - but my writing style is already so...wordy as it is, I really try and err on the side of too vague. I was initially talking about the ad people who use pop-ups/unders, so I hoped it was clear that I didn't really mean all ad people. Obviously I went too far that time.