Solipsism is a pretty basic concept of philosophy, up there with 'simple' stuff like determinism. Using intro philosophy words to describe a film like the Matrix is very appropriate.
I know this isn't a serious article, really, but they could at least be a little more informative. I am not a fan of the Battlecruiser series, but even I know that it was initially released way earlier than the developer wanted. It literally was not finished, but the publisher released it anyway. Why not at least mention that when talking about how buggy it was?
Likewise, why not mention that it was the EA marketdroids who chose to put McGee's name in front of Alice, and that he went on record many times saying he didn't want his name there? It wouldn't take away from how overrated the game is.
Ah well. Can't believe it looks like no Diablo2, Tekken, or Soul Calibur series (a decent enough fighter, worlds better than Tekken, but the amount of hype it has been getting lately is just insane!). And how could DOA3, one of the 'most despised by the hardcore fighting fans' games around, be overrated??
And yes, yes, I feel DOA3 is underappreciated. The main complaint of most people is basically "It doesn't play like VF!" or "It doesn't play like Tekken!" or my favorite "Any overt sexuality automatically makes a bad game!" They won't approach the game on its own terms, to discover all of the cool little innovations, depth, and highly tactical gameplay it allows, while still being very accessible for new players. Of course, it could use a much better training mode and AI (a huge problem with the Namco games, too). Most gamers just don't even know about all of the cool stuff you can do, and how well balanced the game actually is. Hopefully the online competition in DOA Online will convince some fans to take it more seriously.
Just posting this because I saw several people post to Gord's lame analysis of selling consoles for losses. Yes, the GC did sell for a small loss initially. Yes, the PS2 has been sold at a loss in at least some markets, some of the time (for example, the first shipment to the USA, which had to be shipped by air - very expensive. See also Australia.). The Xbox has obviously been sold at a loss, though whether it still is is unclear.
I agree with your point, but this patch doesn't really affect any OS part that a game really takes advantage of (just a buffer underflow in the memory card reading code). It is primarily for Live, which really HAS to be on the hard drive. As Live is updated, you don't want every game that uses it to require a separate patch to run on the lastest version...
(although we recently decided that was only ok for politicians, not for school students!?!)
Politicians are there because they have chosen to be. Students don't really have this choice, which is why the Supreme Court, etc. always strike prayer in school down. Since the government makes school mandatory, institutionalized prayer in that situation also makes it mandated by the state. And our government is at least supposed to try and avoid that kind of thing.
And Bush is always speaking of how his religion is what he uses to primarily make decisions, so the original point about that does stand. His favorite 'philosopher' is Jesus, for example. And the wonderful thing about our country is that the president (and our government) are not just supposed to do what the majority of the people want. Majority rule was not what the country was founded on - much of the Constitution is designed specifically to avoid that situation! Of course, we know how well Bush has shown he believes in our Constitution and its values...
I do think they have influenced some other games - the Tony Hawk series has a very fighting game style combo system, and it is that quality which really makes it so addicting, IMO.
But in most cases, I do think fighting games are ignored by most game designers. Even other fighting game designers ignore most fighting games - the basic innovations of DOA2+ are still ignored by every other fighting game I can think of.
(The main two innovations being: Counters are a foundation of the gameplay, equal to strikes, blocks, and grabs. This forces the player to mixup their attacks and improvise more than its competitors do. Even when you are little more than a beginner, it forces you to think at a higher tactical level than most players ever reach in any of its competitors. Unfortunately, this does make AI battles less interesting. The environment is a huge part of the gameplay. This was especially prominent in DOA3. The environment acts as a complexity multiplier. You can use a more intuitive fighting system than say Tekken or Virtua Fighter, and still reach amazing levels of depth in gameplay strategy. The environmental interaction essentially multiplies the gameplay depth.)
Except in most states (for example my own, Illinois), it was obvious a democrat would win well before the election. Hence, voting my conscience (Green) served no ill effects. Many people will be in similar situations, and they should vote for who they believe in.
That is certainly true. Technical excellence is no indicator of a game's real worth. But even the excellent games that are lacking in tech you do mention (which do play very well) just aren't very well remembered by most people, in my experience. I have to wonder how much of that is because they didn't truly break any technological ground (though I would maybe argue Herzog Zwei did, since it was a pretty complex game for the Genesis, especially to be played split-screen).
And though the Hollywoodization of gaming has caused a lot of problems (the explosion of game budgets, along with a partial collapse of 'independent' game development that so characterized PCs and the like because of their increasing irrelvancy are really starting to hurt gaming), it has led to some cool stuff still. GTA3, love it or hate it, is a ridiculously well-selling game that is also amazingly open-ended for a console game. This game features a huge amount of emergent gameplay (especially compared to the Zeldas and Final Fantasies of the world), as well as an oft-ignored focus on ethics (it does punish you for driving 'evil', but it still gives you the choice to do so). To see complex games like it sell well makes me optimistic about the future of gaming. You see similar ethical choices and emergent stuff in other games (like Deus Ex), and I personally think that especially the ethics part is a newish form of gameplay that we just didn't really have much of in the 8 and 16 bit days. Having to decide what is right and wrong is an exciting gameplay dynamic, and is something that can really affect us even when we are done playing, and hopefully more developers will encorporate it in their games...
I am probably offbase on this, but I thought larger discs actually led to faster read-times. For example, Dreamcast games put the most important data near the outside of the disc, because it could spin faster. Was pretty sure GC and Xbox did this, as well.
Faster seeks would obviously be true for smaller discs, though I would think most well-programmed games would avoid too much seek time.
Yeah, but what Vaevictis666 wrote is certainly true, too. There are some very good, clever ways to optimize loading, and even disc-based games can use them. The better developers do this.
And cartidges may help things, but not always - I remember the Conker N64 game had some slight loading delays here and there (like when it first booted up).
You know, I was actually wondering if I should put some disclaimer that Miyamoto has made some amazing games over the years. I hoped my referencing how classic Mario64 was would do it, but obviously not. I agree, the man has revolutionized gaming, and I really respect him for that. That still doesn't excuse him doing some really (IMO) subpar work nowadays, and saying some ridiculously stupid things in public. I am not even a particularly big fan of the GTA series (though I do admit that 3 and VC are still great games), but just something really rubs me wrong that in what seems like nearly every recent interview with Miyamoto (or his cronies) he has to make sure he mentions how bad of a game GTA is (in a very Japanese way), and how future games aren't going to go in that direction, etc. It comes off as trying to use his (well-deserved) fame to try and sabotage a competitor's excellent game, that obviously a lot of people really do enjoy. And at the same time playing up how 'innovative' this GBA and GC connectivity thing is - admittedly it can lead to some newer game designs (most of which could be done online instead, however), but it is also a pretty blatant cash grab, even for Nintendo. It all seems so crass, and it really bugs me. I wish Miyamoto would step down from being a spokesperson for Nintendo so much, and go back to making some great games. Like how about that cooperative, more mature Mario game he kept referring to back in the N64 days? Or even some new 'old-school style' Mario games for GBA?
...there appears to be a war going on under the unseeing eyes of mortal men. That is pure white wolf, and not something that I think many other Vampire-based games/books have addressed.
Pretty sure the Ghostbuster cartoon covered that storyline quite some time ago.:P
For the record, the Xbox also has some ridiculously good loading times, too, better than the Cube in many cases. Though admittedly a few big games fall on their face in this area (looking at you, KOTOR).
To add to your excellent point, nearly every major revolutionary game also had some kind of cutting edge graphics (or technology) when it was released. Sonic the Hedgehog looked really good, and ran fast as well (remember how bad the slowdown was in most old NES games?). Zelda had a battery save. Mario64 had really amazing graphics for its time. Street Fighter 2 looked amazing when it came out. AFAIK, Super Mario Brothers is the first game with that kind of soundtrack running through the whole thing. There are plenty of other examples. We oftentimes forget how awesome these games looked or sounded back in the day.
Personally, if Nintendo's head developer kept talking about how terrible/immoral/overrated my game was in interviews and press conferences, I wouldn't port it to Gamecube either.
(So GTA3 isn't the future of gaming, Miyamoto? How about you start developing a game that is, then, cause you haven't managed to do something like that since Mario64. I bought my N64 for Mario64 - develop something just as revolutionary as it for GC and I will buy that, too.)
Cube owners expect extremely high quality games, games that compete with the extremely high quality of games made by Nintendo.
I notice your following list of games doesn't include the incredibly compelling Resident Evil games! (snicker) The RE games have sold ridiculously well for GC - still below expectations, but that is unfortunately par for the course with GC (quick: name a big GC title that sold far more than expected - SCII is maybe the only one I can think of).
We have to start admitting that this BS way of analysing games ("Ahem, ahem, I only go for the AAA titles!") is nonsensical. Do you only watch films if they are four stars classics? The majority of filmgoers don't, and I know it is in to be all 'counter-culture' by owning a GC in the West, but there is a good reason not be so elitist. 'B level' films, as well as games, often still have something interesting, worthwhile, innovative, or plain fun about them. To go back to my example, though I personally think they are trash (far worse than Miyamoto's favorite interview target, GTA, too!), a lot of people enjoy the RE games. Maybe they really want a game with zombies, or even just some gore, which RE provides well enough. That is their decision, and that is okay. There is nothing bad about there being more choices out there (unless you are a certain Japanese game company - more on that in a bit). It grows the industry, it creates more gamers, it expands the possibilities of what gaming can offer.
Some gamers do only buy or play a few games a year, and they seem very happy with the Gamecube (though a lot of them do seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time defending their Cube purchase - hurry Nintendo, release more games so they don't have so much time to troll!;P). Many of us play a lot larger variety of games, though. Yeah yeah, Game A might not be as groundbreaking as Mario Sunsh...errr, FZer...errr, Rogue..err, Wind...errr, Animal Harvest Moon...hmmm. Can't think of any groundbreaking Cube games, sorry.:P But that doesn't mean that these games don't have something worthwhile to offer to some gamers.
And I would just like to point out that your sales analysis for GC is bullshit. How the hell would GTA sell one copy for every 2.5 GCs?? That probably equals every Gamecube owner old enough to purchase M rated games! That would be an insane attach rate, and no other game on the GC even remotely suggests a success like that would be forthcoming. And at more than five million copies sold just for VC, you are wrong about the 1 in 15 for PS2 thing, too.
Also, if publishers did take your advice, and brought out more games for the Cube, you would find that this high sales thing would evaporate. The reason certain games manage to sell a lot of copies on GC is the same reason it happened for the N64 - there are long stretches of time where worthwhile games simply aren't coming out for the system. So when something halfway good does come out, gamers flock to it (and overrate it, oftentimes). Start releasing more quality games, more frequently, and this will go away. I suspect Nintendo knows that their high profit margins rely on this, too, and it is why they are happy discouraging a lot of (but not all) developers away from the GC (did it with the N64, too) with the highest licensing costs, proprietary media, a controller designed almost completely around what games Miyamoto wants to do, etc.
Besides, all those PS2 and XboX games come out for the PC eventually anyway.
Like Panzer Dragoon Orta? Otogi? MechAssault? Shenmue series? DOA series? Devil May Cry? Virtua Fighter 4? Final Fantasy X? Dynasty Warriors series? Etc. Etc. You are obviously trolling here, and I can't believe you aren't being modded as such.
More likely it has something to do with electromagnetic fields, actually. They might also cause mass religious conversions, UFO sightings, etc. A very interesting article, it really changed my view of the world when I first read it several years ago.
I don't know much about graffiti, admittedly, but I know this Haze artist does like to incorporate his nickname into lots of his work. I imagine this would be fairly common among the professional artists who do this.
Interesting idea, but I believe it could be bypassed by just blurring the copyrighted material, just like is often done now with logos, etc. in various media (for example, in skater footage in Tony Hawk 4 for Xbox, various Playstation 2 logos in the skate parks are blurred).
Now, maybe if the celebrity somehow modified themselves so their look itself was copyrighted (so you would need to blur the celebrities themselves!)...
Just thought I would mention that lots of graffiti in the Jet Set Radio games were done by this artist. So if you have played them (and why wouldn't you?? Especially the original!), you have seen Haze's work.
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Solipsism is a pretty basic concept of philosophy, up there with 'simple' stuff like determinism. Using intro philosophy words to describe a film like the Matrix is very appropriate.
Just a simple correction:
Valve has nothing to do with any version of Halo, period. Gearbox, who has worked with Valve, is handling the PC port.
I know this isn't a serious article, really, but they could at least be a little more informative. I am not a fan of the Battlecruiser series, but even I know that it was initially released way earlier than the developer wanted. It literally was not finished, but the publisher released it anyway. Why not at least mention that when talking about how buggy it was?
Likewise, why not mention that it was the EA marketdroids who chose to put McGee's name in front of Alice, and that he went on record many times saying he didn't want his name there? It wouldn't take away from how overrated the game is.
Ah well. Can't believe it looks like no Diablo2, Tekken, or Soul Calibur series (a decent enough fighter, worlds better than Tekken, but the amount of hype it has been getting lately is just insane!). And how could DOA3, one of the 'most despised by the hardcore fighting fans' games around, be overrated??
And yes, yes, I feel DOA3 is underappreciated. The main complaint of most people is basically "It doesn't play like VF!" or "It doesn't play like Tekken!" or my favorite "Any overt sexuality automatically makes a bad game!" They won't approach the game on its own terms, to discover all of the cool little innovations, depth, and highly tactical gameplay it allows, while still being very accessible for new players. Of course, it could use a much better training mode and AI (a huge problem with the Namco games, too). Most gamers just don't even know about all of the cool stuff you can do, and how well balanced the game actually is. Hopefully the online competition in DOA Online will convince some fans to take it more seriously.
What has MS broken with the Xbox? It had a security flaw, they fixed it. Nothing was broken.
Just posting this because I saw several people post to Gord's lame analysis of selling consoles for losses. Yes, the GC did sell for a small loss initially. Yes, the PS2 has been sold at a loss in at least some markets, some of the time (for example, the first shipment to the USA, which had to be shipped by air - very expensive. See also Australia.). The Xbox has obviously been sold at a loss, though whether it still is is unclear.
I agree with your point, but this patch doesn't really affect any OS part that a game really takes advantage of (just a buffer underflow in the memory card reading code). It is primarily for Live, which really HAS to be on the hard drive. As Live is updated, you don't want every game that uses it to require a separate patch to run on the lastest version...
(although we recently decided that was only ok for politicians, not for school students!?!)
Politicians are there because they have chosen to be. Students don't really have this choice, which is why the Supreme Court, etc. always strike prayer in school down. Since the government makes school mandatory, institutionalized prayer in that situation also makes it mandated by the state. And our government is at least supposed to try and avoid that kind of thing.
And Bush is always speaking of how his religion is what he uses to primarily make decisions, so the original point about that does stand. His favorite 'philosopher' is Jesus, for example. And the wonderful thing about our country is that the president (and our government) are not just supposed to do what the majority of the people want. Majority rule was not what the country was founded on - much of the Constitution is designed specifically to avoid that situation! Of course, we know how well Bush has shown he believes in our Constitution and its values...
I do think they have influenced some other games - the Tony Hawk series has a very fighting game style combo system, and it is that quality which really makes it so addicting, IMO.
But in most cases, I do think fighting games are ignored by most game designers. Even other fighting game designers ignore most fighting games - the basic innovations of DOA2+ are still ignored by every other fighting game I can think of.
(The main two innovations being:
Counters are a foundation of the gameplay, equal to strikes, blocks, and grabs. This forces the player to mixup their attacks and improvise more than its competitors do. Even when you are little more than a beginner, it forces you to think at a higher tactical level than most players ever reach in any of its competitors. Unfortunately, this does make AI battles less interesting.
The environment is a huge part of the gameplay. This was especially prominent in DOA3. The environment acts as a complexity multiplier. You can use a more intuitive fighting system than say Tekken or Virtua Fighter, and still reach amazing levels of depth in gameplay strategy. The environmental interaction essentially multiplies the gameplay depth.)
Except in most states (for example my own, Illinois), it was obvious a democrat would win well before the election. Hence, voting my conscience (Green) served no ill effects. Many people will be in similar situations, and they should vote for who they believe in.
To add to that, the government itself broadcast the names and addresses of would-be victims, using census data.
I read that many of the perpetrators wandered the streets with a machete in one hand, and a portable radio in the other.
That is certainly true. Technical excellence is no indicator of a game's real worth. But even the excellent games that are lacking in tech you do mention (which do play very well) just aren't very well remembered by most people, in my experience. I have to wonder how much of that is because they didn't truly break any technological ground (though I would maybe argue Herzog Zwei did, since it was a pretty complex game for the Genesis, especially to be played split-screen).
And though the Hollywoodization of gaming has caused a lot of problems (the explosion of game budgets, along with a partial collapse of 'independent' game development that so characterized PCs and the like because of their increasing irrelvancy are really starting to hurt gaming), it has led to some cool stuff still. GTA3, love it or hate it, is a ridiculously well-selling game that is also amazingly open-ended for a console game. This game features a huge amount of emergent gameplay (especially compared to the Zeldas and Final Fantasies of the world), as well as an oft-ignored focus on ethics (it does punish you for driving 'evil', but it still gives you the choice to do so). To see complex games like it sell well makes me optimistic about the future of gaming. You see similar ethical choices and emergent stuff in other games (like Deus Ex), and I personally think that especially the ethics part is a newish form of gameplay that we just didn't really have much of in the 8 and 16 bit days. Having to decide what is right and wrong is an exciting gameplay dynamic, and is something that can really affect us even when we are done playing, and hopefully more developers will encorporate it in their games...
I am probably offbase on this, but I thought larger discs actually led to faster read-times. For example, Dreamcast games put the most important data near the outside of the disc, because it could spin faster. Was pretty sure GC and Xbox did this, as well.
Faster seeks would obviously be true for smaller discs, though I would think most well-programmed games would avoid too much seek time.
Yeah, but what Vaevictis666 wrote is certainly true, too. There are some very good, clever ways to optimize loading, and even disc-based games can use them. The better developers do this.
And cartidges may help things, but not always - I remember the Conker N64 game had some slight loading delays here and there (like when it first booted up).
Oops, you are quite right...argh. Thanks.
You know, I was actually wondering if I should put some disclaimer that Miyamoto has made some amazing games over the years. I hoped my referencing how classic Mario64 was would do it, but obviously not. I agree, the man has revolutionized gaming, and I really respect him for that. That still doesn't excuse him doing some really (IMO) subpar work nowadays, and saying some ridiculously stupid things in public. I am not even a particularly big fan of the GTA series (though I do admit that 3 and VC are still great games), but just something really rubs me wrong that in what seems like nearly every recent interview with Miyamoto (or his cronies) he has to make sure he mentions how bad of a game GTA is (in a very Japanese way), and how future games aren't going to go in that direction, etc. It comes off as trying to use his (well-deserved) fame to try and sabotage a competitor's excellent game, that obviously a lot of people really do enjoy. And at the same time playing up how 'innovative' this GBA and GC connectivity thing is - admittedly it can lead to some newer game designs (most of which could be done online instead, however), but it is also a pretty blatant cash grab, even for Nintendo. It all seems so crass, and it really bugs me. I wish Miyamoto would step down from being a spokesperson for Nintendo so much, and go back to making some great games. Like how about that cooperative, more mature Mario game he kept referring to back in the N64 days? Or even some new 'old-school style' Mario games for GBA?
Nice reference, BTW.
...there appears to be a war going on under the unseeing eyes of mortal men. That is pure white wolf, and not something that I think many other Vampire-based games/books have addressed.
:P
Pretty sure the Ghostbuster cartoon covered that storyline quite some time ago.
"a system is awesome based on its specs, not the games that are available"?
That isn't even remotely what the poster was talking about, and it is ridiculous to even suggest that they were. You seriously missed the point.
For the record, the Xbox also has some ridiculously good loading times, too, better than the Cube in many cases. Though admittedly a few big games fall on their face in this area (looking at you, KOTOR).
To add to your excellent point, nearly every major revolutionary game also had some kind of cutting edge graphics (or technology) when it was released. Sonic the Hedgehog looked really good, and ran fast as well (remember how bad the slowdown was in most old NES games?). Zelda had a battery save. Mario64 had really amazing graphics for its time. Street Fighter 2 looked amazing when it came out. AFAIK, Super Mario Brothers is the first game with that kind of soundtrack running through the whole thing. There are plenty of other examples. We oftentimes forget how awesome these games looked or sounded back in the day.
Personally, if Nintendo's head developer kept talking about how terrible/immoral/overrated my game was in interviews and press conferences, I wouldn't port it to Gamecube either.
(So GTA3 isn't the future of gaming, Miyamoto? How about you start developing a game that is, then, cause you haven't managed to do something like that since Mario64. I bought my N64 for Mario64 - develop something just as revolutionary as it for GC and I will buy that, too.)
Cube owners expect extremely high quality games, games that compete with the extremely high quality of games made by Nintendo.
;P). Many of us play a lot larger variety of games, though. Yeah yeah, Game A might not be as groundbreaking as Mario Sunsh...errr, FZer...errr, Rogue..err, Wind...errr, Animal Harvest Moon...hmmm. Can't think of any groundbreaking Cube games, sorry. :P But that doesn't mean that these games don't have something worthwhile to offer to some gamers.
I notice your following list of games doesn't include the incredibly compelling Resident Evil games! (snicker) The RE games have sold ridiculously well for GC - still below expectations, but that is unfortunately par for the course with GC (quick: name a big GC title that sold far more than expected - SCII is maybe the only one I can think of).
We have to start admitting that this BS way of analysing games ("Ahem, ahem, I only go for the AAA titles!") is nonsensical. Do you only watch films if they are four stars classics? The majority of filmgoers don't, and I know it is in to be all 'counter-culture' by owning a GC in the West, but there is a good reason not be so elitist. 'B level' films, as well as games, often still have something interesting, worthwhile, innovative, or plain fun about them. To go back to my example, though I personally think they are trash (far worse than Miyamoto's favorite interview target, GTA, too!), a lot of people enjoy the RE games. Maybe they really want a game with zombies, or even just some gore, which RE provides well enough. That is their decision, and that is okay. There is nothing bad about there being more choices out there (unless you are a certain Japanese game company - more on that in a bit). It grows the industry, it creates more gamers, it expands the possibilities of what gaming can offer.
Some gamers do only buy or play a few games a year, and they seem very happy with the Gamecube (though a lot of them do seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time defending their Cube purchase - hurry Nintendo, release more games so they don't have so much time to troll!
And I would just like to point out that your sales analysis for GC is bullshit. How the hell would GTA sell one copy for every 2.5 GCs?? That probably equals every Gamecube owner old enough to purchase M rated games! That would be an insane attach rate, and no other game on the GC even remotely suggests a success like that would be forthcoming. And at more than five million copies sold just for VC, you are wrong about the 1 in 15 for PS2 thing, too.
Also, if publishers did take your advice, and brought out more games for the Cube, you would find that this high sales thing would evaporate. The reason certain games manage to sell a lot of copies on GC is the same reason it happened for the N64 - there are long stretches of time where worthwhile games simply aren't coming out for the system. So when something halfway good does come out, gamers flock to it (and overrate it, oftentimes). Start releasing more quality games, more frequently, and this will go away. I suspect Nintendo knows that their high profit margins rely on this, too, and it is why they are happy discouraging a lot of (but not all) developers away from the GC (did it with the N64, too) with the highest licensing costs, proprietary media, a controller designed almost completely around what games Miyamoto wants to do, etc.
Besides, all those PS2 and XboX games come out for the PC eventually anyway.
Like Panzer Dragoon Orta? Otogi? MechAssault? Shenmue series? DOA series? Devil May Cry? Virtua Fighter 4? Final Fantasy X? Dynasty Warriors series? Etc. Etc. You are obviously trolling here, and I can't believe you aren't being modded as such.
More likely it has something to do with electromagnetic fields, actually. They might also cause mass religious conversions, UFO sightings, etc. A very interesting article, it really changed my view of the world when I first read it several years ago.
I don't know much about graffiti, admittedly, but I know this Haze artist does like to incorporate his nickname into lots of his work. I imagine this would be fairly common among the professional artists who do this.
(for reference, see the Jet Set Radio games)
Interesting idea, but I believe it could be bypassed by just blurring the copyrighted material, just like is often done now with logos, etc. in various media (for example, in skater footage in Tony Hawk 4 for Xbox, various Playstation 2 logos in the skate parks are blurred).
Now, maybe if the celebrity somehow modified themselves so their look itself was copyrighted (so you would need to blur the celebrities themselves!)...
Just thought I would mention that lots of graffiti in the Jet Set Radio games were done by this artist. So if you have played them (and why wouldn't you?? Especially the original!), you have seen Haze's work.