The BAC levels of this modern day are simply far too low. It essentially equates to a glass of wine. I'm a Scotch person. I will have aabout 1-2 at most in a given social event. In practice I wait about 1-2 hours before driving. I'm still considered legaly drunk and could loose my license for an exageratedly long amount of time on that simple offense.
There goes my job, house, car (worst case) because I was slightly buzzed, yet perfectly capable of walking, driving... Usually when i drink it is not often, only at a company function...
Still MADD has pushed things too far. The punishment too extreme and the limits too low. While i've been a victim of a serious drunken accident almost 20 years ago, I dont see MADD as worthy of speaking for me. They're just too extremist.
in essence let me play and enjoy GTA IV in peace. If there are parts i'm offended by, then well, i'll just have to skip them. So far the game is an amazing piece of work that I very much enjoy.
I was playing GTA IV last night and took "my cousin" to a local bar to hang out. Watching two virtual russians stumble around plastered was quite possibly the funniest scene in the game (so far). I could barely control my character and he was tripping over his cousin while they were both laughing and mumbling. The scene was simply great.
Hailing a taxi (well trying to at least) got random incomprehensible shouting as my pretend character and his cousin stumbled in the streets of Libery City. Finally after 3-5 minutes the pretend character I was controling was "sober" enough to actually drive a car. So after 10 attempts to jack a car I finally managed.
Driving now was a horrid affair. The car was very unstable and hard to control. A slight left would smash my character into the walls, lamp post, pedestrians... The bar, silly me was well across town so it was a huge challenge to navigate there. But that's not all...
COPS, POLICE, 50... would see my pretend characters virtual drunken ass driving and give chase. Yes, even in a pretend game drunk driving was illegal and had I gotten caught served a penalty. Luckily It is only 1 star and easy to evade even at the slow drunken pace.
My assumption is that MADD had only caught wind of the drunk driving in GTA and didn't actually witness it. Had they experience the same scene i had, they'd know that while funny as all heck, there were penalties.
Now... My mother had been an alcoholic in my youthful years. She loved to be out all night at bars drinking her life away. On a school night when I was 8 she was out with her friends drinking till 2am. Yes that is a horrid act in it's own right leaving a kid in the car to drink but that is not the case to prove only back ground... Well her Beau of the time was going to drive us home, her more sober friend offered me a ride and somehow I refused and stupidly allowed me to ride with my mother and her drunken boyfriend who was driving.
Well the car didnt get far before hitting a stone wall, flipping 3-4 times and landing upside down in someone's yard. I woke up in her friend's car. I suffered a broken tibia and elbow and got to spend christmas in a wheelcheer. She suffered most of her life with a bum hip until a recent replacement.
Long story short my mother smartened up and will never get into a car after drinking, nor with anyone who has drunkin. I would qualify myself as one of MADD's statistics. One of the "Millionas of people" who have suffered drunk driving trauma in their life. While no life was lost it is still traumatic.
Speaking on my behalf I found the GTA IV drunk scenes hilarious. I found it to be a fun and refreshing challenge to an ever increasing stagnating market. I love the game and have played every GTA released so far. I've yet in real life to drive drunk, shoot cops, run over people, jack a car, pick up use and shoot hoes, deal drugs, participate in a gang war, drive by shooting, break an enter, steal and save someone from a burning fire and do unique stunts. Though I've managed to do all that and more playing GTA...
Jack Thompson needs to get a real education and job. MADD needs to stop speaking for me and quite honestly STFU. MADD served their purpose and needs to vanish. THey got draconian laws passed. what more do they want? "Driving while buzzed" now? What's next "Smelling Alcohol before driving is bad and will get you tossed in jail and lost license for 10 years"?
Guitar Hero games feature Gibson Guitars. GH2 and GH3 feature gibson guitars both in the game as purchasable upgrades and outside the game as controlers. The Gibson branding is all over the place in and out of the games as well.
Maybe there are just not enough people running out and buying Gibson guitars because they are too busy playing "Dragon Force" On expert.
Whatever the case it is Gibson trying to whore money from an excessively popular game. Perhaps GH4 will drop the Gibson branding and go to their competitor guitars.
I would also like to step into a future prediction: The Lawyers will be blamed for acting on their own, the case will be dropped and swept under the carpet in an official statement within the next few days.
I used to have a high level of respect for John Travolta and Tom Cruise. Then they joined the Cult of Scientology and became wack jobs. Worse is that they use their "Star Power" to sway more members to the cult movement.
you break the law, you pay the price. You loose your rights the day you pull the trigger, force the clothes off... Criminals have too many rights as it is. Now I see TV commercials for some "behind the bars" TV show with prisoners complaining "there's no privacy, people are all over, separated by race". Well if ya wanted privacy you shouldn't have done the crime.
I'm sorry to go against the modern grain and thought process but things have gotten too soft. Prison's are punishments. They're not recreational resorts. No TV, no visits, nothing. You're cut off from the world you wronged. It's harsh, it's painful, it shouldn't be pleasant. Sure it affects the family of those who didnt commit a crime, but they too need to understand that the person is there to be punished.
I'm all for Deeply implanted RFID tags, implant them directly into a bone to avoid removal. It'll help track down escapees, repeat offenders, everyone. If you want privacy, dont pull the trigger.
And for those "it'll trickle to non criminals and everyday people"... that is where you draw the line, and fight that battle. I dont want government mandated implants in me as a law abiding citizen.
For children: I sure as heck support this implant in children. I dont have one of my own yet though. But I could only imagine a parents fear and worry when their child is abducted, or heck, comes home 1 hour late from agreed curfew. At 18 they can willfully have it removed. But kids, they dont have the right to privacy, as a parent it's your job to keep your kids safe and educated. I know i dont want to find my kid 2 years later dead in a roadside ditch somewhere because "privacy" advocates forbade me from implanting a chip in my kid.
Dumest? maybe. But it was also the better part of the story. If you were a "Sister" killer, you finally find out why they were they way they were.
Remember the intro to the game? You get knocked out and a sister walks by wondering if you are an "angel". Being still alive she passes you by. Shortly after you meet the sister once again witnessing her stabbing a corpse. You dont see her kill the person, but you assume she's to blame. It doesnt help hearing the guy in the talky telling you to kill her because she's an abomination and evil.
12 hours later you're like "OMG I was sooo wrong". The big Daddy training level, being frustrating and annoying was integral to the story and emotional experience.
It would be great in the US, but it would end up hurting more people than it would do good.
Just like the "energy saving" light bulbs and energy star appliances in the past touting "billions $ a year in savings". They forgot one thing, the energy companies loose out on that money and hence jack up the prices. People who didnt adopt energy saving devices because they couldn't afford it or didn't think it would catch on then had to pay even more for electric services.
If these mini reactors take off and are in the hands of civilians and small companies, those that cannot afford them will suffer the most. Energy companies will retaliate by raising prices. The low income crowd looses out again.
Excess energy that is sold back to the grid will be a nice touch and all, but if no one is buying, it'll cause a disruption in our energy infrastructure. Sadly great ideas like this work only in the beginning, then it causes prices in other sectors to jack up.
Now the Utopian side would be that the energy companies change their busines model slightly. Instead of supplying the "refined" electricity, they now supply the fuel for the reactors. Win win, They supply energy to consumers in both forms.
Being the USA that wont work well. THe energy companies would quite possibly prefer to spend $400,000,000 and 5 years in legal warfare saying how that is unfair to their business. In the end the companies will realize the change is not that bad afterall and be "hey guys, just kidding, we didnt mean it when we sued". It'd be nice to see new technologies adopted faster, but capitalizm stomps innovation to dust.
I've only ever been able to find 4 gig sticks. It's good news to hear there are 8 gig sticks floating around. Problem being they're still expensive.
Halfway writing i realized that while expensive, memory sticks are the way to go media wise. UMD is slow, bulky, prone to scratches, case cracking and all sorts of other bad things. It requires moving parts, which eventually break.
Circuits burn out eventually, but they're still better than the slow to load UMD disks. Besides, i could carry quite a few games with me in a compact carry case instead of needing that rather large GameShark Aluminum PSP briefcase.
What t hey're doing is not a kill to UMD. It's to allow people to purchase, d/l and store PSP content on the PC instead of forcing consumers to invest in a PS3.
In all it is a good marketing move to foster more consumer trust and allow some consumer choice.
In the future more PSOne games will be available for the PSP download service. Some are very large (FF7-9) and would require considerable space for permanant storage.
UMD disks hold 1.8 gigs of data. The MEmory Stick the PSP uses holds 4 gigs max at $50-80 per card. It's simply not cost effective to replace UMD with these "yet". It you could d/l PSP games directly to the memory stick you could fit 2-3 games. Even at a discounted price, we're breaking even, or exceeding cost of the UMD.
THe benefit though, is you have fast game read times, fast write, and a smaller footprint than the UMD disks. A basic cary case could now hold 10-20 memory sticks each holding roughly 2 games giving you the capacity to store roughly 40 games in a small cary case, versus the 4 UMD disks current travel cases can carry. Added benefit is your save games can be stored directly on the memory stick with the game.
Ok after some thought, eliminating UMD altogether is a good idea "if" they lower memory stick prices considerably.
Faster load times, bigger storage capacity (4 gigs vs UMD 1.8) directly writable, not affected by scratches, smaller... it's just all good.
Either way you read it, demise of UMD, boost to memory stick, elimination for the need of a PS3... It's a good move on Sony's part. Pipe dream, but maybe they're becoming more consumer friendly.
Updated system. Interface still sucks. They need to steal ideas from the Xbox Media Center. It's not nice when a multibillion dollar company gets beat out by a couple of guys programming semi gray legal software for free.
I dont know what Sony "Home" is. I'm looking forward to more "remote play" capable games for the PS3/PSP mix. I'm totally awaiting more PS1 games that I can play including FF7.
THe XMB interface is "ok" at best. THey seriously need to overhaul the video, and music portion of the system. In fact, they should hire the guys who created "Xbox Media Center" for the original Xbox. THat is one sweet piece of software and can completely replace the Xbox and "evox" dash for modded xboxes.
Seriously, I try to copy music over and it comes over in one long list 1000 lines long. I try to copy it by artist and that fails. The ps3 interface for music and video is horrid. I cant make playlists as well.
Sony is not bad, it's just that they're trying to do too much too quick, and making it sloppy. Instead of analyzing t he market and predicting needs and trends, they're reacting to the market and responding to trends. This makes a rushed out the door feel to products. THey need to step back, analyze what the consumer wants and provide that.
For now My modded Xbox has no media center replacement. For now the PS3 is my updated PS2. I want backwards compatability, hence why I rushed to buy the 60 gig. I want to download games, and stream to my PSP. I want more remote play titles. Heck, I'd love to be able to play a PS2 game through remote play.
There's tons of things Sony "could" do with the PS3. They just need to stop, step back, take a global look, and start revising it piece by piece. Start with more PSP interoperability. I love that feature.
Ok, GoW was simply one of my favorite series for the PS2. It took me a while to pick up, pretty much after it wentto the $20 classics mode.
GoW2 was even more so incredible in story, game play and just all out fun for mature people.
Taking the PS3 out of the equation (I have one) what does his departure mean for the series?
How much input did he have, how much of the game was because of him? Will his departure leave the GoW franchise an empty shell the same way When Peter Molyneax left Bullfrog and EA made a valient attempt at Dungeon Keeper 2 and Populous whatever. Ultima became a nothing when Garriot left...
People hate Sony, and Microsoft, and some cheer when good people leave those companies. But what do these departures really mean to the Game franchises we love?
Manhunt is getting all the attention. It's getting people freaked out about a game training our future killers. I've yet to play it, though I would love to get a copy to try.
We have Clive Barker's Jericho that was released a week earlier. This game should have every group out there in an outrage.
It's violent and gory to an extreme. you wade through pools of blood and body parts in some scenes. It deals with the premise "God" created something "before" humans. That alone should be enough to throw relihous groups into a tivvy.
It deals with paranormal. Each team member has spiritual powers and to boot they're funded by the government.
MINOR SPOILER: THere's posession in the game, your character "dies" near the beginning of the game, but his soul lives on. This allows you to posess and control the different team members, jumping from one o the other.
There are quite a few references to the "first born", an Abyss, and all sorts of occult occurances.
Personally I love the game. The fights are intense, t he story is great, and the graphics are amazing.
Yet Manhunt gets all the acclaim and this little bombshell of offensive content goes completely unnoticed. I could be wrong though, since i've been too busy playing it to notice if it has been in the news or not.
3D cards are next gen over the 2D cards they replaced.
Computers have had incremental upgrades over their 20+ years in service as well as several next gen upgrades.
the 486 was a marginal upgrade over the 386, it added the cache on the chip for a performance boost. Petium would be next gen CPU from there... then 64 bit is the next gen jump again.
They ALL target the same audience, but some items only offered a marginal increase. the PS3 is an upgrade. It plays a higher def DVD format, and does internet plus tons more. I dont consider it next gen yet. Though that "eye of the beholder" can be a next gen game...
We all have our opinions, I hold on a significant upgrade or even change in a device to be next gen. PC's while at the core are the same as they were 20 years ago, they've deffinately up there in the generation leap, though I would have to say incrementally so.
The "next gen" hard drive will be Solid state... finally
I'm a PS3 AND a Wii owner. I'm also an avid PC Gamer. My system is about 2 years old yet can play Jericho (thank you gametap) on it's max graphics settings at 1200x1024 resolution (highest my LCD monitor takes).
I'm honest up front here no trolling intended. The PS3, I only play PS2 games on it currently. I have a lot of them, they look much better, and not having to swap memory cards is a world of difference. I've put in 160 hours playing Persona 3 (when will it end damnit?)
No trolling intended I'm going to sway in the favor to Will, the PS3 and 360 are upgrades not seriously next gen. Better graphics, CPU, memory, networking, internal storage, upgraded sound.... It's all "upgrades" nothing seriously innovative.
Sure PS3 and 360 feature multicore CPU's and wireless control. But there is nothing seriously new with either console aside that it now has a mini OS that you can web browse, stream music and video and stuff. but that's not really next gen either. My computer has done that since 1999 or even earlier.
The Wii on the other hand Is as close to a true "next gen" platform as you can get. It has an entirely different controler scheme, multiplayability and simply fun. Nintendo brought in seniors who've never played video games into the fold. They've widened the audiences and are adding in a slew of different addons that will expand on the Wii's everyday non gamer usability "wii fitness".
I'm sure Sony could easily add in a Wii style controler with Ease. update their system software to support a new bluetooth device and add a wireless sensor bar....
But So far Nintendo took the edge. They took a risk, made a new style of console, and opened up gaming doors to millions more who never dreamed of gaming. That's an achievement.
All 3 consoles have their place though. Not everyone will get all 3, and not everyone shares the same needs. So each console serves it's purpose.
in close, I'll agree with will that the Wii is the only true next gen, and the PS3 and 360 are mere upgrades. None though are trash. I love my PS3, even though it's only being used for PS2 games (ugh persona)
Now the time has come with Spore delays that people equate it to Duke Nukem Forever. For one, Will Wright is a perfectionist. He wont let trash get released. he wants the game acessible to more than the hardcore. The money spent developing would justify the need for a wider audience.
People dont make games simply because they want to, they need to take a serious financial look at cost versus estimated market. You cannot simply jump in, spend $20,000,000 dollars in development and expent the game to be a 5 million copy seller.
Remember Sims 1? That was a huge risk for EA to take. A risk that paid off beyond what anyone imagined. They game was simple, barren of serious content and low graphics. It was all done in a way that if the game didnt sell well, at least they didnt invest excessive cash into the game. By making it expandable, they had planned for it's potential success. Years later Sims is going strong.
Spore is in a similar category. It could flop, it could be the boulder that crushes the sims dominance. But if they release a game, that is buggy, and crash prone, that they plan to patch repeatedly for another year, the game will be quickly dropped and fail miserably. So in taking this risk, they must be 100% certain that Spore is complete, 99.9% bug free and acessable to a large ammount of people, both hardcore and non gamer alike. It's not easy to do this. It takes time, planning, implementation, testing and more planning and revision. Give it time, it will be worth the wait.
Now, Duke Forever. It's an FPS, no where near as complex as Spore. It should have been out after 2 years development. It was basically an empty promise that kept the company alive. Duke = Vapor, Spore = Real.
If you file a patent, but it will take 4 years to develop, and another 2 to inject into the market that still counts as using the patent. You are actively using it by spending research dollars.
Have you heard of the Gif Patent suit? Very famous about 10 years back, which caused a massive change to the png format. THe Gif patent was just sat on for years while it grew in popularity. All of the sudden the patent holders decided to sue everyone for using it. They knew they pretty much could get away with it because the gif was used in pretty much every web site on the net at the time. That was unfair patent abuse.
If you are too small, and can't afford to develop your patent yourself, sell it to a bigger company. Seeking buyers and actively promoting the patent is also a form of utilization.
It's fair to say the US patent system is very messed up. Where else can I patent an Idea or a concept?
When Patents were first started, the country was small and things ran at a much slower pace. Levis held the patent for jeans, and someone held the patent for the rivets to reinforce the stitching. They both worked together and enjoyed many years free of competition.
Times have changed since those humble times. Now we have development and industries growing at a huge pace. It's unfair to hold back new developments for 16 years because of patents and over priced licensing crud.
The test for Breast cancer is so expensive because of the patent on the test. If a doctor upsets that patent holder they can loose the ability to screen patients. This affects public health and insurance. You can't get a cancer screening simply because you are being cautious. It'd cost you $600 a test. $600 that an insruance company wont pay unless you damn well think you're infected, by then there is a damn good chance you're terminal and have a few years to live. You die, All because of patents.
The Wii is a novelty in the sense it is new, and quite a few of the current games are novelty games. Games with minimal graphics and quick to develop and hit the shelves (monkey ball, wario ware...) and host a short short quick game play. My Wii has collected dust shortly after I bought it about 6 months ago.
Granted, the long term of the Wii will ride on "anchor" games like the Metroid and Zelda franchises. I loved Zelda, and it looked fantastic on the Wii. Metroid P3 Is also a fantastic game. It looks great and makes amazing use of the Wii Mote. Games what these will be what will become the mainstay of the Wii and give it the holding power it needs to succeed.
I had Neglected to mention the Resident Evil 4 port. I had the GC version and bought the Wii one when it came out. I would have to say it gave RE new life. Granted I haven't played it in quite some time, there is a good chance I'll be going back to finish Wii RE4.
I know analysts love to pop bubbles and spew negativity at things that are succeeding, possibly to devalue the item in question. I would really have to say that while the Wii is a "Novelty bubble" now, it will, if managed right, sweep into being a mainstay console. THey just need more high production games like MEtroid, RE and Zelda. (Not those particular franchise but High quality...)
I'll take a further step into the pointed edge of the sword and dare to say that I believe the PS3 will be here to stay as well. Sony makes stupid mistakes, that is unquestionable. But with built in Blue Ray, and upscaling/smoothing of PS2 games it has a slight edge. Sure they are releasing bargain bin PS3 with no BC but that is hopefully a market water "test". In fact for the last 3 months ownership, I've only played PS2 games on the PS3.
To bad these inane patent disputes cannot be settled in the same way the Russian's recently handled a spammer.
I understand the harsh implications of that one statement. But seriously, this couple is threatening an entire industry because they decided to sit on a patent and do nothing with it.
A simple rule change to our patent system would end all the disputes. "If you file a patent that you do not make use of or license, within the time of a single year, it becomes public domain".
When Sony announced the 60 gig would be the last with hardware Backwards compatability I bought.
I have quite a few PS2 and even some PSOne games that I play. With the ability to upscale and now Alias the screen, PS2 games look even better than ever. Currently I've only really played PS2 games on my PS3. The price of new PS3 deters my purchasing desire. Generally now I buy used. Of course this jips the publishers of sales, though it saves me about $5-10.
If there were no BC to the PS3 I seriously doubt I would have bought one. Because the 360 has BC to xbox games i'll eventually buy one of those as well. Though there is less of a hurry because it seems BC isn't going anywhere, MS's correct decision.
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The BAC levels of this modern day are simply far too low. It essentially equates to a glass of wine. I'm a Scotch person. I will have aabout 1-2 at most in a given social event. In practice I wait about 1-2 hours before driving. I'm still considered legaly drunk and could loose my license for an exageratedly long amount of time on that simple offense.
There goes my job, house, car (worst case) because I was slightly buzzed, yet perfectly capable of walking, driving... Usually when i drink it is not often, only at a company function...
Still MADD has pushed things too far. The punishment too extreme and the limits too low. While i've been a victim of a serious drunken accident almost 20 years ago, I dont see MADD as worthy of speaking for me. They're just too extremist.
in essence let me play and enjoy GTA IV in peace. If there are parts i'm offended by, then well, i'll just have to skip them. So far the game is an amazing piece of work that I very much enjoy.
I was playing GTA IV last night and took "my cousin" to a local bar to hang out. Watching two virtual russians stumble around plastered was quite possibly the funniest scene in the game (so far). I could barely control my character and he was tripping over his cousin while they were both laughing and mumbling. The scene was simply great.
Hailing a taxi (well trying to at least) got random incomprehensible shouting as my pretend character and his cousin stumbled in the streets of Libery City. Finally after 3-5 minutes the pretend character I was controling was "sober" enough to actually drive a car. So after 10 attempts to jack a car I finally managed.
Driving now was a horrid affair. The car was very unstable and hard to control. A slight left would smash my character into the walls, lamp post, pedestrians... The bar, silly me was well across town so it was a huge challenge to navigate there. But that's not all...
COPS, POLICE, 50... would see my pretend characters virtual drunken ass driving and give chase. Yes, even in a pretend game drunk driving was illegal and had I gotten caught served a penalty. Luckily It is only 1 star and easy to evade even at the slow drunken pace.
My assumption is that MADD had only caught wind of the drunk driving in GTA and didn't actually witness it. Had they experience the same scene i had, they'd know that while funny as all heck, there were penalties.
Now... My mother had been an alcoholic in my youthful years. She loved to be out all night at bars drinking her life away. On a school night when I was 8 she was out with her friends drinking till 2am. Yes that is a horrid act in it's own right leaving a kid in the car to drink but that is not the case to prove only back ground... Well her Beau of the time was going to drive us home, her more sober friend offered me a ride and somehow I refused and stupidly allowed me to ride with my mother and her drunken boyfriend who was driving.
Well the car didnt get far before hitting a stone wall, flipping 3-4 times and landing upside down in someone's yard. I woke up in her friend's car. I suffered a broken tibia and elbow and got to spend christmas in a wheelcheer. She suffered most of her life with a bum hip until a recent replacement.
Long story short my mother smartened up and will never get into a car after drinking, nor with anyone who has drunkin. I would qualify myself as one of MADD's statistics. One of the "Millionas of people" who have suffered drunk driving trauma in their life. While no life was lost it is still traumatic.
Speaking on my behalf I found the GTA IV drunk scenes hilarious. I found it to be a fun and refreshing challenge to an ever increasing stagnating market. I love the game and have played every GTA released so far. I've yet in real life to drive drunk, shoot cops, run over people, jack a car, pick up use and shoot hoes, deal drugs, participate in a gang war, drive by shooting, break an enter, steal and save someone from a burning fire and do unique stunts. Though I've managed to do all that and more playing GTA...
Jack Thompson needs to get a real education and job. MADD needs to stop speaking for me and quite honestly STFU. MADD served their purpose and needs to vanish. THey got draconian laws passed. what more do they want? "Driving while buzzed" now? What's next "Smelling Alcohol before driving is bad and will get you tossed in jail and lost license for 10 years"?
Guitar Hero games feature Gibson Guitars. GH2 and GH3 feature gibson guitars both in the game as purchasable upgrades and outside the game as controlers. The Gibson branding is all over the place in and out of the games as well.
Maybe there are just not enough people running out and buying Gibson guitars because they are too busy playing "Dragon Force" On expert.
Whatever the case it is Gibson trying to whore money from an excessively popular game. Perhaps GH4 will drop the Gibson branding and go to their competitor guitars.
I would also like to step into a future prediction: The Lawyers will be blamed for acting on their own, the case will be dropped and swept under the carpet in an official statement within the next few days.
I used to have a high level of respect for John Travolta and Tom Cruise. Then they joined the Cult of Scientology and became wack jobs. Worse is that they use their "Star Power" to sway more members to the cult movement.
and if your kids (if you have any) ever get kidnapped, you'll wish you'd have implanted the chip.
or maybe, I only read the top 20 comments...
you break the law, you pay the price. You loose your rights the day you pull the trigger, force the clothes off... Criminals have too many rights as it is. Now I see TV commercials for some "behind the bars" TV show with prisoners complaining "there's no privacy, people are all over, separated by race". Well if ya wanted privacy you shouldn't have done the crime.
I'm sorry to go against the modern grain and thought process but things have gotten too soft. Prison's are punishments. They're not recreational resorts. No TV, no visits, nothing. You're cut off from the world you wronged. It's harsh, it's painful, it shouldn't be pleasant. Sure it affects the family of those who didnt commit a crime, but they too need to understand that the person is there to be punished.
I'm all for Deeply implanted RFID tags, implant them directly into a bone to avoid removal. It'll help track down escapees, repeat offenders, everyone. If you want privacy, dont pull the trigger.
And for those "it'll trickle to non criminals and everyday people"... that is where you draw the line, and fight that battle. I dont want government mandated implants in me as a law abiding citizen.
For children: I sure as heck support this implant in children. I dont have one of my own yet though. But I could only imagine a parents fear and worry when their child is abducted, or heck, comes home 1 hour late from agreed curfew. At 18 they can willfully have it removed. But kids, they dont have the right to privacy, as a parent it's your job to keep your kids safe and educated. I know i dont want to find my kid 2 years later dead in a roadside ditch somewhere because "privacy" advocates forbade me from implanting a chip in my kid.
360 is vastly superior in number. far more units have been sold so far making it's numerical superiority over the ps3 unquestionable.
Many people spoke to you over the radio. So it could have been any number of people telling you kill kill kill.
The cake is a Lie.
Dumest? maybe. But it was also the better part of the story. If you were a "Sister" killer, you finally find out why they were they way they were.
Remember the intro to the game? You get knocked out and a sister walks by wondering if you are an "angel". Being still alive she passes you by. Shortly after you meet the sister once again witnessing her stabbing a corpse. You dont see her kill the person, but you assume she's to blame. It doesnt help hearing the guy in the talky telling you to kill her because she's an abomination and evil.
12 hours later you're like "OMG I was sooo wrong". The big Daddy training level, being frustrating and annoying was integral to the story and emotional experience.
It would be great in the US, but it would end up hurting more people than it would do good.
Just like the "energy saving" light bulbs and energy star appliances in the past touting "billions $ a year in savings". They forgot one thing, the energy companies loose out on that money and hence jack up the prices. People who didnt adopt energy saving devices because they couldn't afford it or didn't think it would catch on then had to pay even more for electric services.
If these mini reactors take off and are in the hands of civilians and small companies, those that cannot afford them will suffer the most. Energy companies will retaliate by raising prices. The low income crowd looses out again.
Excess energy that is sold back to the grid will be a nice touch and all, but if no one is buying, it'll cause a disruption in our energy infrastructure. Sadly great ideas like this work only in the beginning, then it causes prices in other sectors to jack up.
Now the Utopian side would be that the energy companies change their busines model slightly. Instead of supplying the "refined" electricity, they now supply the fuel for the reactors. Win win, They supply energy to consumers in both forms.
Being the USA that wont work well. THe energy companies would quite possibly prefer to spend $400,000,000 and 5 years in legal warfare saying how that is unfair to their business. In the end the companies will realize the change is not that bad afterall and be "hey guys, just kidding, we didnt mean it when we sued". It'd be nice to see new technologies adopted faster, but capitalizm stomps innovation to dust.
I've only ever been able to find 4 gig sticks. It's good news to hear there are 8 gig sticks floating around. Problem being they're still expensive.
Halfway writing i realized that while expensive, memory sticks are the way to go media wise. UMD is slow, bulky, prone to scratches, case cracking and all sorts of other bad things. It requires moving parts, which eventually break.
Circuits burn out eventually, but they're still better than the slow to load UMD disks. Besides, i could carry quite a few games with me in a compact carry case instead of needing that rather large GameShark Aluminum PSP briefcase.
What t hey're doing is not a kill to UMD. It's to allow people to purchase, d/l and store PSP content on the PC instead of forcing consumers to invest in a PS3.
In all it is a good marketing move to foster more consumer trust and allow some consumer choice.
In the future more PSOne games will be available for the PSP download service. Some are very large (FF7-9) and would require considerable space for permanant storage.
UMD disks hold 1.8 gigs of data. The MEmory Stick the PSP uses holds 4 gigs max at $50-80 per card. It's simply not cost effective to replace UMD with these "yet". It you could d/l PSP games directly to the memory stick you could fit 2-3 games. Even at a discounted price, we're breaking even, or exceeding cost of the UMD.
THe benefit though, is you have fast game read times, fast write, and a smaller footprint than the UMD disks. A basic cary case could now hold 10-20 memory sticks each holding roughly 2 games giving you the capacity to store roughly 40 games in a small cary case, versus the 4 UMD disks current travel cases can carry. Added benefit is your save games can be stored directly on the memory stick with the game.
Ok after some thought, eliminating UMD altogether is a good idea "if" they lower memory stick prices considerably.
Faster load times, bigger storage capacity (4 gigs vs UMD 1.8) directly writable, not affected by scratches, smaller... it's just all good.
Either way you read it, demise of UMD, boost to memory stick, elimination for the need of a PS3... It's a good move on Sony's part. Pipe dream, but maybe they're becoming more consumer friendly.
I'm scared for the future then...
Updated system. Interface still sucks. They need to steal ideas from the Xbox Media Center. It's not nice when a multibillion dollar company gets beat out by a couple of guys programming semi gray legal software for free.
Ok then. I just got home, I read this response, and wam, turn on the PS3. THe update is downloading now.
Thanks for letting me know this, since it was a very important item on my "Ps3 gripe" list.
37% downloaded, grr DSL. FIOS install tomorrow.
I dont know what Sony "Home" is. I'm looking forward to more "remote play" capable games for the PS3/PSP mix. I'm totally awaiting more PS1 games that I can play including FF7.
THe XMB interface is "ok" at best. THey seriously need to overhaul the video, and music portion of the system. In fact, they should hire the guys who created "Xbox Media Center" for the original Xbox. THat is one sweet piece of software and can completely replace the Xbox and "evox" dash for modded xboxes.
Seriously, I try to copy music over and it comes over in one long list 1000 lines long. I try to copy it by artist and that fails. The ps3 interface for music and video is horrid. I cant make playlists as well.
Sony is not bad, it's just that they're trying to do too much too quick, and making it sloppy. Instead of analyzing t he market and predicting needs and trends, they're reacting to the market and responding to trends. This makes a rushed out the door feel to products. THey need to step back, analyze what the consumer wants and provide that.
For now My modded Xbox has no media center replacement.
For now the PS3 is my updated PS2.
I want backwards compatability, hence why I rushed to buy the 60 gig.
I want to download games, and stream to my PSP.
I want more remote play titles. Heck, I'd love to be able to play a PS2 game through remote play.
There's tons of things Sony "could" do with the PS3. They just need to stop, step back, take a global look, and start revising it piece by piece. Start with more PSP interoperability. I love that feature.
Ok, GoW was simply one of my favorite series for the PS2. It took me a while to pick up, pretty much after it wentto the $20 classics mode.
GoW2 was even more so incredible in story, game play and just all out fun for mature people.
Taking the PS3 out of the equation (I have one) what does his departure mean for the series?
How much input did he have, how much of the game was because of him? Will his departure leave the GoW franchise an empty shell the same way When Peter Molyneax left Bullfrog and EA made a valient attempt at Dungeon Keeper 2 and Populous whatever. Ultima became a nothing when Garriot left...
People hate Sony, and Microsoft, and some cheer when good people leave those companies. But what do these departures really mean to the Game franchises we love?
Manhunt is getting all the attention. It's getting people freaked out about a game training our future killers. I've yet to play it, though I would love to get a copy to try.
We have Clive Barker's Jericho that was released a week earlier. This game should have every group out there in an outrage.
It's violent and gory to an extreme. you wade through pools of blood and body parts in some scenes.
It deals with the premise "God" created something "before" humans. That alone should be enough to throw relihous groups into a tivvy.
It deals with paranormal. Each team member has spiritual powers and to boot they're funded by the government.
MINOR SPOILER: THere's posession in the game, your character "dies" near the beginning of the game, but his soul lives on. This allows you to posess and control the different team members, jumping from one o the other.
There are quite a few references to the "first born", an Abyss, and all sorts of occult occurances.
Personally I love the game. The fights are intense, t he story is great, and the graphics are amazing.
Yet Manhunt gets all the acclaim and this little bombshell of offensive content goes completely unnoticed. I could be wrong though, since i've been too busy playing it to notice if it has been in the news or not.
Oh man, I hate this cheesy horrible borderline troll comment but I have to say it... (flushes karma down toilet)
I'll fart Gold Rose Petals before Duke Nukem Forever comes out.
Next Gen can mean alot of things.
USB is next gen compaired to the serial port.
PCI is next gen compaired to the ISA slot.
3D cards are next gen over the 2D cards they replaced.
Computers have had incremental upgrades over their 20+ years in service as well as several next gen upgrades.
the 486 was a marginal upgrade over the 386, it added the cache on the chip for a performance boost. Petium would be next gen CPU from there... then 64 bit is the next gen jump again.
They ALL target the same audience, but some items only offered a marginal increase. the PS3 is an upgrade. It plays a higher def DVD format, and does internet plus tons more. I dont consider it next gen yet. Though that "eye of the beholder" can be a next gen game...
We all have our opinions, I hold on a significant upgrade or even change in a device to be next gen. PC's while at the core are the same as they were 20 years ago, they've deffinately up there in the generation leap, though I would have to say incrementally so.
The "next gen" hard drive will be Solid state... finally
I'm a PS3 AND a Wii owner. I'm also an avid PC Gamer. My system is about 2 years old yet can play Jericho (thank you gametap) on it's max graphics settings at 1200x1024 resolution (highest my LCD monitor takes).
I'm honest up front here no trolling intended. The PS3, I only play PS2 games on it currently. I have a lot of them, they look much better, and not having to swap memory cards is a world of difference. I've put in 160 hours playing Persona 3 (when will it end damnit?)
No trolling intended I'm going to sway in the favor to Will, the PS3 and 360 are upgrades not seriously next gen. Better graphics, CPU, memory, networking, internal storage, upgraded sound.... It's all "upgrades" nothing seriously innovative.
Sure PS3 and 360 feature multicore CPU's and wireless control. But there is nothing seriously new with either console aside that it now has a mini OS that you can web browse, stream music and video and stuff. but that's not really next gen either. My computer has done that since 1999 or even earlier.
The Wii on the other hand Is as close to a true "next gen" platform as you can get. It has an entirely different controler scheme, multiplayability and simply fun. Nintendo brought in seniors who've never played video games into the fold. They've widened the audiences and are adding in a slew of different addons that will expand on the Wii's everyday non gamer usability "wii fitness".
I'm sure Sony could easily add in a Wii style controler with Ease. update their system software to support a new bluetooth device and add a wireless sensor bar....
But So far Nintendo took the edge. They took a risk, made a new style of console, and opened up gaming doors to millions more who never dreamed of gaming. That's an achievement.
All 3 consoles have their place though. Not everyone will get all 3, and not everyone shares the same needs. So each console serves it's purpose.
in close, I'll agree with will that the Wii is the only true next gen, and the PS3 and 360 are mere upgrades. None though are trash. I love my PS3, even though it's only being used for PS2 games (ugh persona)
Now the time has come with Spore delays that people equate it to Duke Nukem Forever. For one, Will Wright is a perfectionist. He wont let trash get released. he wants the game acessible to more than the hardcore. The money spent developing would justify the need for a wider audience.
People dont make games simply because they want to, they need to take a serious financial look at cost versus estimated market. You cannot simply jump in, spend $20,000,000 dollars in development and expent the game to be a 5 million copy seller.
Remember Sims 1? That was a huge risk for EA to take. A risk that paid off beyond what anyone imagined. They game was simple, barren of serious content and low graphics. It was all done in a way that if the game didnt sell well, at least they didnt invest excessive cash into the game. By making it expandable, they had planned for it's potential success. Years later Sims is going strong.
Spore is in a similar category. It could flop, it could be the boulder that crushes the sims dominance. But if they release a game, that is buggy, and crash prone, that they plan to patch repeatedly for another year, the game will be quickly dropped and fail miserably. So in taking this risk, they must be 100% certain that Spore is complete, 99.9% bug free and acessable to a large ammount of people, both hardcore and non gamer alike. It's not easy to do this. It takes time, planning, implementation, testing and more planning and revision. Give it time, it will be worth the wait.
Now, Duke Forever. It's an FPS, no where near as complex as Spore. It should have been out after 2 years development. It was basically an empty promise that kept the company alive. Duke = Vapor, Spore = Real.
If you file a patent, but it will take 4 years to develop, and another 2 to inject into the market that still counts as using the patent. You are actively using it by spending research dollars.
Have you heard of the Gif Patent suit? Very famous about 10 years back, which caused a massive change to the png format. THe Gif patent was just sat on for years while it grew in popularity. All of the sudden the patent holders decided to sue everyone for using it. They knew they pretty much could get away with it because the gif was used in pretty much every web site on the net at the time. That was unfair patent abuse.
If you are too small, and can't afford to develop your patent yourself, sell it to a bigger company. Seeking buyers and actively promoting the patent is also a form of utilization.
It's fair to say the US patent system is very messed up. Where else can I patent an Idea or a concept?
When Patents were first started, the country was small and things ran at a much slower pace. Levis held the patent for jeans, and someone held the patent for the rivets to reinforce the stitching. They both worked together and enjoyed many years free of competition.
Times have changed since those humble times. Now we have development and industries growing at a huge pace. It's unfair to hold back new developments for 16 years because of patents and over priced licensing crud.
The test for Breast cancer is so expensive because of the patent on the test. If a doctor upsets that patent holder they can loose the ability to screen patients. This affects public health and insurance. You can't get a cancer screening simply because you are being cautious. It'd cost you $600 a test. $600 that an insruance company wont pay unless you damn well think you're infected, by then there is a damn good chance you're terminal and have a few years to live. You die, All because of patents.
The Wii is a novelty in the sense it is new, and quite a few of the current games are novelty games. Games with minimal graphics and quick to develop and hit the shelves (monkey ball, wario ware...) and host a short short quick game play. My Wii has collected dust shortly after I bought it about 6 months ago.
Granted, the long term of the Wii will ride on "anchor" games like the Metroid and Zelda franchises. I loved Zelda, and it looked fantastic on the Wii. Metroid P3 Is also a fantastic game. It looks great and makes amazing use of the Wii Mote. Games what these will be what will become the mainstay of the Wii and give it the holding power it needs to succeed.
I had Neglected to mention the Resident Evil 4 port. I had the GC version and bought the Wii one when it came out. I would have to say it gave RE new life. Granted I haven't played it in quite some time, there is a good chance I'll be going back to finish Wii RE4.
I know analysts love to pop bubbles and spew negativity at things that are succeeding, possibly to devalue the item in question. I would really have to say that while the Wii is a "Novelty bubble" now, it will, if managed right, sweep into being a mainstay console. THey just need more high production games like MEtroid, RE and Zelda. (Not those particular franchise but High quality...)
I'll take a further step into the pointed edge of the sword and dare to say that I believe the PS3 will be here to stay as well. Sony makes stupid mistakes, that is unquestionable. But with built in Blue Ray, and upscaling/smoothing of PS2 games it has a slight edge. Sure they are releasing bargain bin PS3 with no BC but that is hopefully a market water "test". In fact for the last 3 months ownership, I've only played PS2 games on the PS3.
To bad these inane patent disputes cannot be settled in the same way the Russian's recently handled a spammer.
I understand the harsh implications of that one statement. But seriously, this couple is threatening an entire industry because they decided to sit on a patent and do nothing with it.
A simple rule change to our patent system would end all the disputes. "If you file a patent that you do not make use of or license, within the time of a single year, it becomes public domain".
Troll begone.
When Sony announced the 60 gig would be the last with hardware Backwards compatability I bought.
I have quite a few PS2 and even some PSOne games that I play. With the ability to upscale and now Alias the screen, PS2 games look even better than ever. Currently I've only really played PS2 games on my PS3. The price of new PS3 deters my purchasing desire. Generally now I buy used. Of course this jips the publishers of sales, though it saves me about $5-10.
If there were no BC to the PS3 I seriously doubt I would have bought one. Because the 360 has BC to xbox games i'll eventually buy one of those as well. Though there is less of a hurry because it seems BC isn't going anywhere, MS's correct decision.