Amazon is a good example for me, because I like to buy books from there and have in the past. Of course, not knowing every single author alive, I appreciate when Amazon suggests authors based on what I have previously indicated that I like, and often this judgement has been correct - Sure, I haven't bought all that many books that they've recommended, but I have read up on them and a lot sound really interesting, worth my time and money. I don't consider that to be a bad thing.
If going to Amazon and looking at Milan Kunder and Albert Camus can get you recomended Don Quixote, I consider that an immeasurable success.
I use the numbers not as a 'score' so much as an easily digested chunk of information about that reviewer's thoughts on the game. If I am vaguely aware of the game and have no real interest in playing it, a numerical score is a good way for me to gauge the public's reaction, particularly if I happen to notice multiple scores. If I am desperately waiting for any shred of information, a number (if high) gives me a quick surge of excitement that the game met expectations, but then I will 100% follow that up by reading the review. If a low score is given, I'll 100% read the review to determine why the game is thought to be so poor.
I think that number scores are important for what they are: A distillation of opinion. That's all it is, and all it should be treated as. If you want the justification of the opinion, then that is what the review is for. The way I think about is like this: A random art critic can say 'Van Gogh is the greatest artist, ever.', and that is like a numeric opinion. If I want to know why he thinks that, then I'll read further. If I hate Van Gogh, then I'll be curious about how his opinion could be so different to mine, and if I love him, well, to be honest I probably won't care too much to read a gushing review of the man's work.
That being define:word, a fantastic tool I use 20+ times a day, hell maybe even 30+. It's the primary reason for why I even go to google - though I've found that www.dictionary.com sometimes gives me words google doesn't.
On that note, does anyone have a defintion for encarnadine? Google doesn't so I'm stumped!
As for the sports titles, they fit the term sequel much better. If you think of it in sports terms, each title works like a season, which follows the previous title/season in the series.
Although, in sports themselves, each season is more of a patch to the previous season (same graphics, same engine, same effects, just shuffled some players around and added/dropped a few), with the occasional expansion pack (like the down line, puck highlighting, or a new brand of jersey).
Please highlight where you stated that you were talking about real world sport, and not video game sport?
Normally I wouldn't bother pointing it out, but you made a big deal out of insulting the other poster, so...
Oh, I agree with all that. But Ebert would have started off somewhere, doing something, and it was his special brand of reviewing that allowed him to get to the top to do things his way, saying what he wants to say. Game magazines don't have a 'that person' who will rise to the top. Nobody is really willing to stick out their professional neck in case it gets chopped off by the axe-friendly Big Studios.
Maybe one day they will, but right now they don't. And until then, credibility isn't an option.
See? That has absolutely nothing to do with anything. If you don't like CDs, use iTunes! Shop online! There are alternatives to ripping artists off because you don't want to go the store and pay for it.
Not for me there isn't. Not living in the US means I can't use itunes. So...now?
I find it interesting that there is such a difference between game reviewing and movie/book reviews.
Take Ebert for example. He regularly criticises movies, and sometimes quite harshly, but his reputation is only *better* for it. He is also given free access to movie screenings before they are officially released, along with free press kits and I'm *sure* he is wooed by a great number of hopefull studios for each movie. And then he still tears them to shreds. Same applies with book reviewers.
Game reviewers need to take a leaf out of their page. Review the games as honestly as possible - highlight the bad just as much as the good - and maybe they'll get respect.
With the Frustration game, I don't know if you have anything to do with it or if you just enjoy it, but...It is too US-centric for me to play. According to the rules, the first X questions are easy and 'anyone should be able to get them', then the questions actually get interesting and difficult. That's fantastic, except for the fact that I have no idea about American sports team name, and they seem to be the primary focus of the earlier questions. Nor do I know US state abbreviations, I can guess based on the initials of the state, but...
So anyway, my point is that if a non-US person starts taking this test, your results are going to get skewed, and non-US people aren't going to enjoy it at all. I was intrigued by the idea, but disappointed with the reality.
While that is a good point, what if you have exhausted all of those options and still want more opinions? In that case you wouldn't be unsatisfied with the results on the first page so much as wanting to know more.
If you've given up videogames because it's not a constructive use of your time, you may as well up watching TV, reading, going to the theater and listening to music
I partly disagree. Surely reading the works of a genius has greater worth than playing a video game? If I had the choice, I'd rather spend an hour reading Marquez, Saramago, Dostoyevsky, DeLillo, Pynchon, et al than playing the latest and greatest FPS. And I certainly wouldn't consider them on the same scale of worth.
That isn't to say that playing video games is worthless - far from it. Entertainment is a great thing. But, as I'm getting older - and admittedly, I'm only 21 - I've found that I would rather spend my time doing what *I* consider a little more valuable - reading a great work, for example.
But yes, balance is an important thing. But I do have fun reading what I read. And I do think that when I'm 60, I'll look back at all the books I've read and the wisdom I (hope I've) received, and I'll be more satisfied with that than I will be with a fully maxed out Final Fantasy XXXXXX save game.
I disagree, obviously. For me, the wonder of the book was more then journey with the characters, and the quirky way it was told. I wasn't expecting plot, so I wasn't all that upset when I didn't get it.
But I can understand if a person doesn't get it. It is a difficult book. Hell, if I didn't enjoy his writing style so much and the weird plot lines, I probably wouldn't have liked it either.
In no particular order (And probably none of these books were written this year, oh well):
Life of Pi - Yann Martel: A fantastic book dealing with a little boy on a boat with a tiger. Starts off a bit slow, and for a very long time you aren't really sure where it is heading, but stick with it because the last fifty pages or so are breathtaking. Probably the most thought provoking ending in a book this year.
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Basically a book looking at all the different types of love. Healthy love, obsessive love, unrequited love, family love, etc. Marquez has a typical fantasy-reality style which really works in this book (Imagine people buying a dozen roses for their lover and then eating each one because they love them too much)
Infinite Jest - DF Wallace: A mind job. Extremely dense, this book has 1,000 'normal' pages and an extra 100 pages of footnotes that must be read. Hundreds of characters, tens of plot-lines, no real resolution or plot or point, this book is amazing. The joy is in the characters and the writing, which is phenomenal. Classic first line: I am in a room surrounded by heads with bodies. Beautiful stuff.
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco: This book is smaller than Infinite Jest, but just as dense. The author is a phenomenally smart man, and it shows throughout this book. He makes thousands of throaway references to obscure medieval places, events, and people, and it all matters. Trying to keep your head around the plot as it spirals out of control is half the fun. Probably the ultimate conspiracy book ever: It ties everything that has ever happened together. What more could you want?
Blindness - Jose Saramago: Saramago is a gifted writer. Everything he writes is so lyrical and poetic, metaphors and symbolism just drips from his pen onto the page. Blindness has a killer plot: For no reason, people are going blind. And it is contagious. An interesting study on humanity, Saramago focuses more on the philosophical side of everyone going blind than the potential hack doomsday plot which perhaps a lesser writer would have chosen. Be warned though, Saramago uses massive paragraphs, little punctuation, and nobody has a name. Once get used to the style, it flows perfectly, but it may provide a stumble to some.
And there you have it. A few of my favourites, give them a try, they are all amazing.
Actually, with FFVIII, winding up at the last dungeon at level 20 is probably the best thing you could have done. The game works on the fact that at lower levels, the enemies are lower as well. You can abuse this by pumping up your own statistics using junctioning and high level magic (which is easy to find after you attain the airship), and then you'll pretty much rule the world.
And you can exit the castle by going to the area before the castles gate, there should be a few huge chains, go up to them and press the action button until you jump over into a doorway. Then you'll be on the world map, the Ragnarok is somewhere (can't remember where, sorry). After that, travel to the Island Closest to Heaven/Hell (They are on the left-most and right-most tips, respectively) and get all the high magic. You can also find most of the GFs you may have missed, so really, you are in a great position.
If my recommendations were too vague, just check out www.gamefaqs.com, it should have plenty of info.
That is a fantastic idea. I would love to see some sort of reward in place for characters that make a profit for their particular shard or whatever.
But, it does raise some interesting problems. If something like this is to become common, then there will be servers devoted entirely to selling and buying, with little or no regard to the game itself. Now, while this may benefit the developers (Who want the money) and the players who enjoy camping over spawn points, for me, this would help kill off the actual game part of the game.
I suppose though if there were servers dedicated to this sort of selling then it would be ok, but then a 'This Kingdom is doing wonderful...' message wouldn't be a happy event so much as an expected occurance from the scummers.
What a fantastic game. For us poor Westerners, the end of the Berserk DVDs was the end of the series, even though in the Japanese manga it was really only the beginning.
Sword of the Berserk changed this. We got to find out more about Guts, find out that Caska really wasn't dead (yay!) and just explore the world that I know I had come to love. And it had Puck!
Great game, highly recommended. Unless you have a problem with fighting with swords bigger than yourself, then I am not sure I even want to speak to you.
I don't exactly understand this. I use Mandrake 9.2 at home, and it has everything I need. Office, internet, email, it is all there. Whenever I need to install something, I use Mandrake's package manager, type in what I want (or type in some words that would fit the description of what I want), select the options that come up, and bang! they are installed.
Where is the difficulty? The challenge? There isn't any! A few clicks of a mouse, and I have a new program installed. It is that easy, for me. And my uses for Linux are pretty much Average Joe uses.
Slashdot Mirror
Weren't NES games being made up until 2000? I think they were still churning out dodgy sports games and whatnot in Japan...
Amazon is a good example for me, because I like to buy books from there and have in the past. Of course, not knowing every single author alive, I appreciate when Amazon suggests authors based on what I have previously indicated that I like, and often this judgement has been correct - Sure, I haven't bought all that many books that they've recommended, but I have read up on them and a lot sound really interesting, worth my time and money. I don't consider that to be a bad thing.
If going to Amazon and looking at Milan Kunder and Albert Camus can get you recomended Don Quixote, I consider that an immeasurable success.
I think that number scores are important for what they are: A distillation of opinion. That's all it is, and all it should be treated as. If you want the justification of the opinion, then that is what the review is for. The way I think about is like this: A random art critic can say 'Van Gogh is the greatest artist, ever.', and that is like a numeric opinion. If I want to know why he thinks that, then I'll read further. If I hate Van Gogh, then I'll be curious about how his opinion could be so different to mine, and if I love him, well, to be honest I probably won't care too much to read a gushing review of the man's work.
You realise of course that in the last six months or so, the ipod has had a 909% increase in sales? That amounts to some hefty profits, my friend.
On that note, does anyone have a defintion for encarnadine? Google doesn't so I'm stumped!
You post on LUE, don't you??
Although, in sports themselves, each season is more of a patch to the previous season (same graphics, same engine, same effects, just shuffled some players around and added/dropped a few), with the occasional expansion pack (like the down line, puck highlighting, or a new brand of jersey).
Please highlight where you stated that you were talking about real world sport, and not video game sport?
Normally I wouldn't bother pointing it out, but you made a big deal out of insulting the other poster, so...
Maybe one day they will, but right now they don't. And until then, credibility isn't an option.
That's not what I said.
Not for me there isn't. Not living in the US means I can't use itunes. So...now?
Take Ebert for example. He regularly criticises movies, and sometimes quite harshly, but his reputation is only *better* for it. He is also given free access to movie screenings before they are officially released, along with free press kits and I'm *sure* he is wooed by a great number of hopefull studios for each movie. And then he still tears them to shreds. Same applies with book reviewers.
Game reviewers need to take a leaf out of their page. Review the games as honestly as possible - highlight the bad just as much as the good - and maybe they'll get respect.
With the Frustration game, I don't know if you have anything to do with it or if you just enjoy it, but...It is too US-centric for me to play. According to the rules, the first X questions are easy and 'anyone should be able to get them', then the questions actually get interesting and difficult. That's fantastic, except for the fact that I have no idea about American sports team name, and they seem to be the primary focus of the earlier questions. Nor do I know US state abbreviations, I can guess based on the initials of the state, but...
So anyway, my point is that if a non-US person starts taking this test, your results are going to get skewed, and non-US people aren't going to enjoy it at all. I was intrigued by the idea, but disappointed with the reality.
I don't understand the nitpick here?
Good idea in theory, I think bad in execution.
I partly disagree. Surely reading the works of a genius has greater worth than playing a video game? If I had the choice, I'd rather spend an hour reading Marquez, Saramago, Dostoyevsky, DeLillo, Pynchon, et al than playing the latest and greatest FPS. And I certainly wouldn't consider them on the same scale of worth.
That isn't to say that playing video games is worthless - far from it. Entertainment is a great thing. But, as I'm getting older - and admittedly, I'm only 21 - I've found that I would rather spend my time doing what *I* consider a little more valuable - reading a great work, for example.
But yes, balance is an important thing. But I do have fun reading what I read. And I do think that when I'm 60, I'll look back at all the books I've read and the wisdom I (hope I've) received, and I'll be more satisfied with that than I will be with a fully maxed out Final Fantasy XXXXXX save game.
...You should probably update your sig, because the URL is actually the-lung.co.uk
I disagree, obviously. For me, the wonder of the book was more then journey with the characters, and the quirky way it was told. I wasn't expecting plot, so I wasn't all that upset when I didn't get it.
But I can understand if a person doesn't get it. It is a difficult book. Hell, if I didn't enjoy his writing style so much and the weird plot lines, I probably wouldn't have liked it either.
But, you know, different strokes and all that.
In no particular order (And probably none of these books were written this year, oh well):
Life of Pi - Yann Martel: A fantastic book dealing with a little boy on a boat with a tiger. Starts off a bit slow, and for a very long time you aren't really sure where it is heading, but stick with it because the last fifty pages or so are breathtaking. Probably the most thought provoking ending in a book this year.
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Basically a book looking at all the different types of love. Healthy love, obsessive love, unrequited love, family love, etc. Marquez has a typical fantasy-reality style which really works in this book (Imagine people buying a dozen roses for their lover and then eating each one because they love them too much)
Infinite Jest - DF Wallace: A mind job. Extremely dense, this book has 1,000 'normal' pages and an extra 100 pages of footnotes that must be read. Hundreds of characters, tens of plot-lines, no real resolution or plot or point, this book is amazing. The joy is in the characters and the writing, which is phenomenal. Classic first line: I am in a room surrounded by heads with bodies. Beautiful stuff.
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco: This book is smaller than Infinite Jest, but just as dense. The author is a phenomenally smart man, and it shows throughout this book. He makes thousands of throaway references to obscure medieval places, events, and people, and it all matters. Trying to keep your head around the plot as it spirals out of control is half the fun. Probably the ultimate conspiracy book ever: It ties everything that has ever happened together. What more could you want?
Blindness - Jose Saramago: Saramago is a gifted writer. Everything he writes is so lyrical and poetic, metaphors and symbolism just drips from his pen onto the page. Blindness has a killer plot: For no reason, people are going blind. And it is contagious. An interesting study on humanity, Saramago focuses more on the philosophical side of everyone going blind than the potential hack doomsday plot which perhaps a lesser writer would have chosen. Be warned though, Saramago uses massive paragraphs, little punctuation, and nobody has a name. Once get used to the style, it flows perfectly, but it may provide a stumble to some.
And there you have it. A few of my favourites, give them a try, they are all amazing.
Wow, great, now I can easily imagine that in my mind! A billionth of a meter...it's all so simple now!
DISCLAIMER: Yes, that was a joke, people
And you can exit the castle by going to the area before the castles gate, there should be a few huge chains, go up to them and press the action button until you jump over into a doorway. Then you'll be on the world map, the Ragnarok is somewhere (can't remember where, sorry). After that, travel to the Island Closest to Heaven/Hell (They are on the left-most and right-most tips, respectively) and get all the high magic. You can also find most of the GFs you may have missed, so really, you are in a great position.
If my recommendations were too vague, just check out www.gamefaqs.com, it should have plenty of info.
Hell of a lot of fun in multiplayer, too.
But, it does raise some interesting problems. If something like this is to become common, then there will be servers devoted entirely to selling and buying, with little or no regard to the game itself. Now, while this may benefit the developers (Who want the money) and the players who enjoy camping over spawn points, for me, this would help kill off the actual game part of the game.
I suppose though if there were servers dedicated to this sort of selling then it would be ok, but then a 'This Kingdom is doing wonderful...' message wouldn't be a happy event so much as an expected occurance from the scummers.
Just a thought.
Sword of the Berserk changed this. We got to find out more about Guts, find out that Caska really wasn't dead (yay!) and just explore the world that I know I had come to love. And it had Puck!
Great game, highly recommended. Unless you have a problem with fighting with swords bigger than yourself, then I am not sure I even want to speak to you.
I salute you, good sir. Made my Tuesday!
Where is the difficulty? The challenge? There isn't any! A few clicks of a mouse, and I have a new program installed. It is that easy, for me. And my uses for Linux are pretty much Average Joe uses.