WoW is in no way a sandbox game though, so this argument doesn't apply to it...
And even though there is story between episode IV and V, people come to expect a lot from the whole "Star Wars" feel, so it makes it harder for the game to be truly freeform...
That's one thing I've seen as a problem with SWG since the beggining, though. It works with Eve because Eve isn't based on an established story, they can make it as they go. With an MMO based on such an established license and such an established storyline, people come to expect certain things from it...
There is no "Eve feeling" to that game because what makes that feeling is the game and the players...There is a "Star Wars Feeling", though, that anyone playing a game based on that license comes to expect.
I much prefer an MMO (or as the folks at Terra Nova like to call them, Virtual World) that I play to be freeform and sandbox, but that will probably never work on a world based on an established license (like star wars, lord of the rings, etc), because people will approach that sandbox with their own ideas and preconceptions about the story, and they will come in conflict with other people's approaches. It's a sandbox that's being messed with by thousands of different people, and while it's an amazing experience to create a story like that, how can that happen when everyone seems to already "know" the story and expect things from it?
Though I personally am much more a fan of Penny-Arcade, CAD probably lends itself better for an animation because Tim usually presents story and continuity, and this is a brave and pioneering move for a webcomic...And judging from the trailer the animation follows the overall feel of the comic quite nicely, which is good. I remember reading in an interview with Tycho, though, that they had been approached about an animated series once and even had actual scripts safely stored in a drawer...who knows, maybe after this move by CAD we'll see a P-A cartoon...that would truly be amazing...
The news post forgot to mention that the episodes will be charged though. $2.99 a peice or free if you become a Premium member of CAD...Bummer...I'm pretty sure with the huge readership numbers that website gets he could easily have procured some kind of sponsorship...(Maybe he'd even make MORE money that way because more people would watch the episodes!)...
Interest is one thing. Ask them if they'd pay the usually high prices carriers charge for these kinds of services, and you'll see that percentage lower very very quickly...
So let me get this straight...
You have Shaky hands, you hate styluses, you only have the need for 1h a day of mobility since you can plug the game in the rest of the entire day....
Guess what? You are not the Targeted market for the DS! So maybe stop pointlessly bitching about it just because an article is pointing out a potential weak feature of the PSP...sheesh!
This goes to show just how wrong the publishing companies are approaching the problem of piracy. In my opinion, if I bought the software legitimally I should not have to go through the hassle of getting a patch to run it in my computer!
Companies insist in wasting millions of dollars to place piracy countermeasures which end up only hurting the consumer who bought the game legitimally.
Why not have a philosophy of giving certain benefits to people who buy the game legitimally instead of these futile attempts to stop the pirating?
For instance, The Sims 2 requires a registered account (with an original CD Key) to be able to access the downloadable content from within the game and from the site...Why don't they expand on such benefits and make it so that you need to register your product to access them?
I know even that system wouldn't be piracy-proof, but it would be harder at least, and it would BENEFIT the people who buy the game instead of making them go through hassles...
On another note, I have Nero and Clone CD on my PC and had no problems playing The Sims...but then again I don't have those programs running as processes or on the tray...
But still, this is all ridiculous.
Not so screwed up as it seems. Spending your time watching what your Sim will do when he finds out that his wife is cheating on him isn't entirely different from spending time watching "Friends" to see who will stay with who. The difference is that the Sims is an interactive form of entertainment while TV is not. But they are both entertainment, and both represent ways to escape from your day to day life and to identify with the problems of your day to day life as well. Many people don't make alter ego's of themselves in the sims to go and meet pretend people, but when they do, its the same thing as watching a TV series and identifying with one of the characters.
Anyways, a lot of people who spend time playing the sims, if they didn't have sims, they'd look for other forms of escape, such as TV, etc...
The Kessel Run has been the topic of much speculation given Solo's confusing boast of completing the Kessel Run in "less than 12 parsecs." Given that a parsec is a unit of measurement and not of time, it hardly seemed like a speed record.
The Star Wars Technical Journal came up with a workable explanation that saw a Kessel Runner have to deposit smuggled spice shipments in between freighters traveling at a fixed speed, so that the shorter distance covered by said freighters during a Run was worth bragging about. Another version of the Kessel Run, spun out of the Jedi Academy Trilogy, required a smuggling ship to skirt close to the black holes of the Maw Cluster, shortening the distance only through skillful piloting and powerful engines.
Of course, the simplest solution is the one favored by George Lucas, and the one that appeared in the screenplay for A New Hope. Han's boast was nothing more than a lie, meant to hoodwink provincial customers. Obi-Wan's knowing glance suggests he saw right through Solo's meaningless bragging.
I disagree with your assertment that gaming is an absolute waste of life. As long as it is done in your spare time, how different is gaming from sitting in front of the TV or watching a movie?
To be able to produce anything, one needs to establish his own little repertoire of information. Every experience you have in your life, yes, even gaming, can add to that...
Granted, gaming too much is not good, but its defenetely not a waste. Nobody can be productive 100% of the time.
Though I agree with you that its horrible to dumb down movies and edit them down to PG-13, your "old adage" doesnt seem to apply here... Hollywood movies may be dumbed down, but look at the ammount of money they make just BECAUSE they please the masses...Just because they dont please you or me doesnt mean they dont please a hell of a lot of people.
The new super Mario RPG for the GBA, "Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga", also does it that way. Monsters are roaming around the map, nothing is random. Besides, if you jump on a monsters head on teh map before the battle starts, they begin taking damage. Not only that, but the game also involves you more in the battles than a simple choosing from a menu (like in Paper Mario)...You actually have to time your button presses to do more damage.
It's one of the best games I've played in a while.
Random encounters are not bad because they are Unrealistic. They are bad because they are just that: Random time fillers. They are there so the game will last longer, but most of the times you as a player just want to get on with the story. I'd much rather have a more intelligent game design where I can see the monsters moving around the "map" or the "town", and if you touch one, the battle starts (like some RPGs).
That way, its not only an added fun gameplay element, but the battles can be better integrated to the story, which is really what counts in a console RPG...
Well, with some parts of the male anatomy, it would be pointless to give players the ability to customize. Everyone would just use the maximum setting anyways;)
Certainly the entire concept of a "golden age" of gaming is flawed, but you have to agree that many of the foundations of gaming were set in 8-bit and 16-bit...
GTA3 is based on free exploration, something established in the 8-bit era by games like Zelda. HL, I can argue with you on the point that it is 100x better gameplay than mario. I disagree. Mario games from 8-bit like mario 3 are far simpler, and certainly not based on storyline like Half-life, and therefore far more replayable. I can see myself picking up Mario 3 to play again and again, even today, even after I just beat it, but I won't do that with the Half-Life single player.
Those games DID offer a lot in terms of gameplay! That doesn't mean that today's games don't, of course they do. But consider the fact that today, Nintendo is releasing 8 and 16 bit classics on the GBA. The kid who said "I would want to die if all i had to play were 8-bit games" probably has a gameboy, and probably will buy Mario Advance 4, which is Super Mario 3...
Also, the reason graphically intensive games feel more "accessible" today, is because these kids are kids in 2003, a time of internet, mass communication, soundbytes etc. They are exposed to information in this manner, and expect to recieve information explicitely. Look at the comment by one of the kids when he played pong:
"Gordon: It doesn't even go over the net. It goes through it. I don't even think that thing in the middle is a net."
Our ocidental society is slowly losing the ability to use abstract, non-figurative perception. Imagine how that kid would react to Modern Art? Its scary to think of it:)
Its not just the Hardware, the software sucks too.
This review of an N-gage game from gamespot says it all..."Oversights" seems to be the word of choice to describe the N-gage...
There really isn't much to say about Puzzle Bobble VS other than that it is a complete and utter mess. Puzzle Bobble seems to be one of those games that would be incredibly difficult to mess up, but the N-Gage version of the game proves that even the simplest and most street-tested gameplay concept can be ruined by a few key oversights. These oversights make Puzzle Bobble VS an awful product that isn't worth your time or money.
"As for Christmas presents, I think for XMAS I'm going to by my gf her own gamecube. We've been playing Mario Kart on the N-64 lately. I think it'd be fun to get a second game cube along with broadband adapters and play against each other, each on our own TV."
Oppositively, you could play Mario Kart on the SAME TV, thereby actually staying with your girlfriend in the same room, and in close proximity, even though you are both looking fixatedly at a TV
My view is the same as a few people who posted here: Even with a waning third party support, Nintendo itself is able to publish some excellent games for the cube. PS2 is technologically backwards, and nearly all its good games can be played either on the PC or on the Xbox (or even the gamecube). The Xbox's advantage is Xbox Live, but many of its good single player games can be played on the PC (halo is comming too)...
The gamecube already has an AMAZING list of great single player games, all exclusive... and I am sure nintendo is planning to lure in some third party developers (and famous names in the business as well). Take Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid games)...he's going to start doing exclusive stuff with nintendo and the cube.
But if you are in doubts, check out the highest scoring games of the cube and the xbox at IGN.com. You'll see that nearly all good xbox games are either multi-platform, or are coming out for the pc, while nearly all gamecube gems are exclusive titles...
Now dont get me wrong, i have an xbox and love it, but i think that if you have a good pc, the Cube is a great console to get, because of all the amazing exclusive games it has...or get both consoles and be really happy:D
Slashdot Mirror
Insightful??
People here need insight on how to climb stairs?
WoW is in no way a sandbox game though, so this argument doesn't apply to it ...
And even though there is story between episode IV and V, people come to expect a lot from the whole "Star Wars" feel, so it makes it harder for the game to be truly freeform...
Star Wars sure does...Han totally pulled a Leeroy Jenkins move in Episode IV when he ran towards those stormtroopers...
That's one thing I've seen as a problem with SWG since the beggining, though. It works with Eve because Eve isn't based on an established story, they can make it as they go. With an MMO based on such an established license and such an established storyline, people come to expect certain things from it...
There is no "Eve feeling" to that game because what makes that feeling is the game and the players...There is a "Star Wars Feeling", though, that anyone playing a game based on that license comes to expect.
I much prefer an MMO (or as the folks at Terra Nova like to call them, Virtual World) that I play to be freeform and sandbox, but that will probably never work on a world based on an established license (like star wars, lord of the rings, etc), because people will approach that sandbox with their own ideas and preconceptions about the story, and they will come in conflict with other people's approaches. It's a sandbox that's being messed with by thousands of different people, and while it's an amazing experience to create a story like that, how can that happen when everyone seems to already "know" the story and expect things from it?
Though I personally am much more a fan of Penny-Arcade, CAD probably lends itself better for an animation because Tim usually presents story and continuity, and this is a brave and pioneering move for a webcomic...And judging from the trailer the animation follows the overall feel of the comic quite nicely, which is good. I remember reading in an interview with Tycho, though, that they had been approached about an animated series once and even had actual scripts safely stored in a drawer...who knows, maybe after this move by CAD we'll see a P-A cartoon...that would truly be amazing...
The news post forgot to mention that the episodes will be charged though. $2.99 a peice or free if you become a Premium member of CAD...Bummer...I'm pretty sure with the huge readership numbers that website gets he could easily have procured some kind of sponsorship...(Maybe he'd even make MORE money that way because more people would watch the episodes!)...
Interest is one thing. Ask them if they'd pay the usually high prices carriers charge for these kinds of services, and you'll see that percentage lower very very quickly...
Force-Sensing Side Buttons
Stretch out with your feelings to use them!
So let me get this straight...
You have Shaky hands, you hate styluses, you only have the need for 1h a day of mobility since you can plug the game in the rest of the entire day....
Guess what? You are not the Targeted market for the DS! So maybe stop pointlessly bitching about it just because an article is pointing out a potential weak feature of the PSP...sheesh!
This goes to show just how wrong the publishing companies are approaching the problem of piracy. In my opinion, if I bought the software legitimally I should not have to go through the hassle of getting a patch to run it in my computer!
Companies insist in wasting millions of dollars to place piracy countermeasures which end up only hurting the consumer who bought the game legitimally.
Why not have a philosophy of giving certain benefits to people who buy the game legitimally instead of these futile attempts to stop the pirating?
For instance, The Sims 2 requires a registered account (with an original CD Key) to be able to access the downloadable content from within the game and from the site...Why don't they expand on such benefits and make it so that you need to register your product to access them?
I know even that system wouldn't be piracy-proof, but it would be harder at least, and it would BENEFIT the people who buy the game instead of making them go through hassles...
On another note, I have Nero and Clone CD on my PC and had no problems playing The Sims...but then again I don't have those programs running as processes or on the tray... But still, this is all ridiculous.
Not so screwed up as it seems. Spending your time watching what your Sim will do when he finds out that his wife is cheating on him isn't entirely different from spending time watching "Friends" to see who will stay with who. The difference is that the Sims is an interactive form of entertainment while TV is not. But they are both entertainment, and both represent ways to escape from your day to day life and to identify with the problems of your day to day life as well. Many people don't make alter ego's of themselves in the sims to go and meet pretend people, but when they do, its the same thing as watching a TV series and identifying with one of the characters.
Anyways, a lot of people who spend time playing the sims, if they didn't have sims, they'd look for other forms of escape, such as TV, etc...
The Kessel Run has been the topic of much speculation given Solo's confusing boast of completing the Kessel Run in "less than 12 parsecs." Given that a parsec is a unit of measurement and not of time, it hardly seemed like a speed record.
The Star Wars Technical Journal came up with a workable explanation that saw a Kessel Runner have to deposit smuggled spice shipments in between freighters traveling at a fixed speed, so that the shorter distance covered by said freighters during a Run was worth bragging about. Another version of the Kessel Run, spun out of the Jedi Academy Trilogy, required a smuggling ship to skirt close to the black holes of the Maw Cluster, shortening the distance only through skillful piloting and powerful engines.
Of course, the simplest solution is the one favored by George Lucas, and the one that appeared in the screenplay for A New Hope. Han's boast was nothing more than a lie, meant to hoodwink provincial customers. Obi-Wan's knowing glance suggests he saw right through Solo's meaningless bragging.
This is from the official Databank
I disagree with your assertment that gaming is an absolute waste of life. As long as it is done in your spare time, how different is gaming from sitting in front of the TV or watching a movie? To be able to produce anything, one needs to establish his own little repertoire of information. Every experience you have in your life, yes, even gaming, can add to that... Granted, gaming too much is not good, but its defenetely not a waste. Nobody can be productive 100% of the time.
Though I agree with you that its horrible to dumb down movies and edit them down to PG-13, your "old adage" doesnt seem to apply here... Hollywood movies may be dumbed down, but look at the ammount of money they make just BECAUSE they please the masses...Just because they dont please you or me doesnt mean they dont please a hell of a lot of people.
I would rather have trudged thru an area with random encounters than numbly gone thru a part of the game where I already know what is going to happen.
How about you neither "trudge" or "go numbly around" in an RPG, and actually have FUN exploring and progressing the story??
The new super Mario RPG for the GBA, "Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga", also does it that way. Monsters are roaming around the map, nothing is random. Besides, if you jump on a monsters head on teh map before the battle starts, they begin taking damage. Not only that, but the game also involves you more in the battles than a simple choosing from a menu (like in Paper Mario)...You actually have to time your button presses to do more damage.
It's one of the best games I've played in a while.
Random encounters are not bad because they are Unrealistic. They are bad because they are just that: Random time fillers. They are there so the game will last longer, but most of the times you as a player just want to get on with the story. I'd much rather have a more intelligent game design where I can see the monsters moving around the "map" or the "town", and if you touch one, the battle starts (like some RPGs).
That way, its not only an added fun gameplay element, but the battles can be better integrated to the story, which is really what counts in a console RPG...
Well, with some parts of the male anatomy, it would be pointless to give players the ability to customize. Everyone would just use the maximum setting anyways
Certainly the entire concept of a "golden age" of gaming is flawed, but you have to agree that many of the foundations of gaming were set in 8-bit and 16-bit...
GTA3 is based on free exploration, something established in the 8-bit era by games like Zelda. HL, I can argue with you on the point that it is 100x better gameplay than mario. I disagree. Mario games from 8-bit like mario 3 are far simpler, and certainly not based on storyline like Half-life, and therefore far more replayable. I can see myself picking up Mario 3 to play again and again, even today, even after I just beat it, but I won't do that with the Half-Life single player.
Those games DID offer a lot in terms of gameplay! That doesn't mean that today's games don't, of course they do. But consider the fact that today, Nintendo is releasing 8 and 16 bit classics on the GBA. The kid who said "I would want to die if all i had to play were 8-bit games" probably has a gameboy, and probably will buy Mario Advance 4, which is Super Mario 3...
Also, the reason graphically intensive games feel more "accessible" today, is because these kids are kids in 2003, a time of internet, mass communication, soundbytes etc. They are exposed to information in this manner, and expect to recieve information explicitely. Look at the comment by one of the kids when he played pong:
"Gordon: It doesn't even go over the net. It goes through it. I don't even think that thing in the middle is a net."
Our ocidental society is slowly losing the ability to use abstract, non-figurative perception. Imagine how that kid would react to Modern Art? Its scary to think of it
Anyways, those are my thoughts...
Its not just the Hardware, the software sucks too.
This review of an N-gage game from gamespot says it all..."Oversights" seems to be the word of choice to describe the N-gage...
There really isn't much to say about Puzzle Bobble VS other than that it is a complete and utter mess. Puzzle Bobble seems to be one of those games that would be incredibly difficult to mess up, but the N-Gage version of the game proves that even the simplest and most street-tested gameplay concept can be ruined by a few key oversights. These oversights make Puzzle Bobble VS an awful product that isn't worth your time or money.
"As for Christmas presents, I think for XMAS I'm going to by my gf her own gamecube. We've been playing Mario Kart on the N-64 lately. I think it'd be fun to get a second game cube along with broadband adapters and play against each other, each on our own TV." Oppositively, you could play Mario Kart on the SAME TV, thereby actually staying with your girlfriend in the same room, and in close proximity, even though you are both looking fixatedly at a TV
What? Metal Gear Solid 3?
My view is the same as a few people who posted here: Even with a waning third party support, Nintendo itself is able to publish some excellent games for the cube. PS2 is technologically backwards, and nearly all its good games can be played either on the PC or on the Xbox (or even the gamecube). The Xbox's advantage is Xbox Live, but many of its good single player games can be played on the PC (halo is comming too)...
:D
The gamecube already has an AMAZING list of great single player games, all exclusive... and I am sure nintendo is planning to lure in some third party developers (and famous names in the business as well). Take Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid games)...he's going to start doing exclusive stuff with nintendo and the cube.
But if you are in doubts, check out the highest scoring games of the cube and the xbox at IGN.com. You'll see that nearly all good xbox games are either multi-platform, or are coming out for the pc, while nearly all gamecube gems are exclusive titles...
Now dont get me wrong, i have an xbox and love it, but i think that if you have a good pc, the Cube is a great console to get, because of all the amazing exclusive games it has...or get both consoles and be really happy