The price per game and time-limited games were two reasons I stopped playing video games in arcades. Another big reason is those damn fighting games where you pay 50 cents for two fights and you're done. It breeds jerks who will interrupt your story-mode play and bump you off the machine just because they can.
There was also the realization that some games would ramp up the difficulty so fast it wasn't possible to win anymore. I had a chance to play a racing game called Ironman Ivan Stewart's Super Off-Road where the coin mech would register credits just for jiggling the coin door. Even with enough buy-ins for a vehicle maxed out on all stats it quickly became impossible to win even when expertly using up 99 nitrous to practically fly around the whole track. You couldn't earn that much nitrous between races normally; you'd have to buy-in to get them. The grey computer pickup just could not be beaten and would even steal record times.
It got to the point where I'd only play puzzle games and pinball because the dominant money-making violent games were too much of a wallet-suck. I can't even find decent games in bars anymore; they're all sports-themed games like football or golf, another genre I hate.
I did manage to roll over the score (at 9999 points) on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. It has exploitable behaviors. (That game also taught me not to play at arcades where the standard 8-way joysticks were replaced with 4-way joysticks.)
The only arcades around here now are in movie theaters where you need to pay for a movie to get in.
cutting the right-sized hole into the back of the unit to snap in an RJ45 socket... (or just drilling a hole into the back and running a patch cable straight from the card to the outside...)
I just bent up one of the tabs on the lid in the back and put a small patch cable to an RJ45 gender changer. No diking necessary, and no more hanging out than a USB adapter. And once expanded, there's not much need to move the unit.
As far as I know Amazon UK won't export outside of the UK.
I'm in the US and have bought many DVDs from Amazon UK. But they won't ship toys to me in the US. I think they restrict software, including games, as well. It depends on what you're ordering whether or not they'll ship out of country.
Though if the allusion is correct, wouldn't that mean that the people running the game want you to fear them? Anthony was oppressive and everyone in Peaksville lived in fear of him.
BTW, UPN's version of The Twilight Zone included a sequel to that episode called "It's Still A Good Life". Anthony (reprised by Bill Mumy) still rules Peaksville and has a daughter who also has the power.
Tier 1: Music you don't buy: $.49 Tier 2: Music you do buy: $2.99
Imagine if this were literally true: the prices you see are prices pitched to you individually based on their profile of you and your purchasing history. If your history shows you buy everything put out by a particular artist, those titles are pitched at higher prices to extract more money from your obsession-compulsion. Others may pay more or less.
It is technically feasible today: pricing not for what the market will bear but what each individual will.
I swear, there should be a law that if a MMORPG closes its servers, they open the source to the playerbase so people can create and host their own servers off of it.
It's called the public domain, and it won't happen within your lifetime, nor that of your great grandchildren, nor even within the lifetime of the codebase.
Welcome to the new dark ages as mandated by international copyright law.
OK, so maybe my sample size is small (two players: RCA and Philips), or because I only used component output to an HDTV, not RCA or S-Video, but I'll test the Panasonic portable and the Humax TiVo w/DVD-R just the same. But surely someone that maintains a database of DVD player capabilities has more thorough data.
I feel no need at all to test the computers' software players.
Of course, your solution of buying four drives and a new computer case would work, too
Don't be so sure about that either. I could see the system balking at having multiple drives of differing regions. I can see software getting created with the presumption that you have only one DVD-capable drive in your system and refusing to work with any other than the first one it finds, in addition to requiring the hardware match the software's opinion of authorized region, the latter also restricted in the number of region changes.
Things like this make me glad I don't throw away my old computers. Anyone have a program that will turn any file into an audio signal suitable for piping into an Apple ]['s cassette port? Preferably something able to split the file into 16 KiB chunks.
"But Vista will lock out DVD drives that have a region of 0, and that's the bigger issue at hand..."
The right hand specifically: most porn is region 0.
Region 0 drives, not region 0 discs. It is drives that allow playback of any disc regardless of region they're obsoleting.
And it isn't just porn in region zero: the entire run of The Tomorrow People is already available from the UK on Region 0 discs, and most players in the US can convert PAL content to NTSC. Though after the currency conversion it does cost a lot more, and that's before postage and packing charges.
Wanna get on the Internet? Get one of those "Trusted" OSs (you know, the only kind that ISPs will legally be able to allow...).
And they'll be able to do it under the guise of "quarantining" your insecure system. Nevermind that an RPC1 DVD-ROM drive has as much to do with the Internet as an air conditioner in a garbage truck has to do with homeland security.
"Ah, hello Captain Prostetnic, and how are we feeling today?"
"I appear to have wiped out half my crew."
"So you appear to have wiped out half your crew, have you?"
"That's what I said."
"So, that's what you said, is it?"
"That is what I said."
"I see, so that is what you said, is it?"
"Yes."
"So your answer to my question, 'That is what you said, is it?' is yes."
"Yes."
"I see. Well, this is very interesting."
"Mr. Halfrunt, I have just wiped out half of my crew."
"So you have just wiped out..."
"YES!"
"Well, this too is very interesting."
"Well?"
"I think this is probably perfectly normal behaviour for a Vogon. The natural and healthy channeling of aggressive instincts in the acts of senseless violence..."
"That is exactly what you always say!"
"Well, I think that it's perfectly normal behaviour for a psychiatrist! Ha! Excellent! Ha ha! We are clearly both very well adjusted in our mental attitudes today!"
They basically said they'd be surprised if anyone ended up enjoying the latest RPG Maker game. Its score? 3/5. That's 60%
No, that's 50%. Their scale has no zero, so the lowest a game can be rated is 1/5. Any worse than that and it stays unrated and lampooned as a "Game You Should Never Buy" such as:
"Games so bad we couldn't review them because our rating scale doesn't have a zero. Don't say we didn't warn you."
'X-PLAY' RATINGS written by X-Play staff on Monday, April 14, 2003
Here's a breakdown of what the 'X-Play' ratings mean. Five stars: Our highest recommendation Five-star games are a rarity. This is a landmark title that every gamer should consider owning. Even gamers who aren't fans of the genre will enjoy playing this game. It may have some slight flaws, but the ambition of the title and what the developer was able to successfully pull off more than make up for any shortcomings. If games are indeed art, these are masterpieces.
Four stars: Great A fine example of gaming. Fun to play through and through. Easily one of the best examples of the genre. Very little is wrong with this title, but gamers who don't like the game's genre won't enjoy this game. Or, the game has all the trappings of a five-star title but suffers from one or two serious design flaws that affect gameplay.
Three stars: Average These are fun-to-play, pretty solid titles with a few minor flaws. This is not a poor rating. Most games will fall into this category. There's just little to differentiate this title from the rest of the pack. The game lacks technical or design polish but is still enjoyable. It'll certainly appeal to fans of the genre.
Two stars: Fair Not too much here to recommend. There's some fun to be had with this title, but we're seen its likes a million times before. There are technical or design flaws that significantly hamper gameplay. It may be worth a rental, but only die-hard fans of the genre should consider purchasing it.
One star: Poor We cannot recommend this title under any circumstances. Be it shoddy design or game-stopping bugs, there are just too many things wrong with this game for gamers to bother playing it.
To enjoy X-Play you need to realize that the most entertaining parts are when they mercilessly review bad games, the occasional skits, and theme episodes.
Slashdot Mirror
Any updates from the Second Life newsdesk on Dave and The Hub?
Perhaps they confused the Zombies!!! card game with being a video game.
The price per game and time-limited games were two reasons I stopped playing video games in arcades. Another big reason is those damn fighting games where you pay 50 cents for two fights and you're done. It breeds jerks who will interrupt your story-mode play and bump you off the machine just because they can.
There was also the realization that some games would ramp up the difficulty so fast it wasn't possible to win anymore. I had a chance to play a racing game called Ironman Ivan Stewart's Super Off-Road where the coin mech would register credits just for jiggling the coin door. Even with enough buy-ins for a vehicle maxed out on all stats it quickly became impossible to win even when expertly using up 99 nitrous to practically fly around the whole track. You couldn't earn that much nitrous between races normally; you'd have to buy-in to get them. The grey computer pickup just could not be beaten and would even steal record times.
It got to the point where I'd only play puzzle games and pinball because the dominant money-making violent games were too much of a wallet-suck. I can't even find decent games in bars anymore; they're all sports-themed games like football or golf, another genre I hate.
I did manage to roll over the score (at 9999 points) on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. It has exploitable behaviors. (That game also taught me not to play at arcades where the standard 8-way joysticks were replaced with 4-way joysticks.)
The only arcades around here now are in movie theaters where you need to pay for a movie to get in.
This takes "bug-for-bug compatibility" to the next level.
Now the king of compatiblity claims is "'sploit-for-'sploit compatible"!
Well if you can't get the article to accept responses immediately when it goes live, you're going to get a lot of redundant posts.
cutting the right-sized hole into the back of the unit to snap in an RJ45 socket... (or just drilling a hole into the back and running a patch cable straight from the card to the outside...)
I just bent up one of the tabs on the lid in the back and put a small patch cable to an RJ45 gender changer. No diking necessary, and no more hanging out than a USB adapter. And once expanded, there's not much need to move the unit.
Every gamer/case-modder under the sun will now only purchase the Raptor.
Oh yeah, this will be perfect for my Schrödinger Box.
All the early adopters of HDTV either have component only, or component and DVI.
Component and VGA here, on a 4:3 tube that won't squeeze 1080i video to the proper aspect ratio.
The PS3 is supposed to have BluRay. That might give the lead to BluRay.
What's Sony's track record on proprietary media again?
As far as I know Amazon UK won't export outside of the UK.
I'm in the US and have bought many DVDs from Amazon UK. But they won't ship toys to me in the US. I think they restrict software, including games, as well. It depends on what you're ordering whether or not they'll ship out of country.
Though if the allusion is correct, wouldn't that mean that the people running the game want you to fear them? Anthony was oppressive and everyone in Peaksville lived in fear of him.
BTW, UPN's version of The Twilight Zone included a sequel to that episode called "It's Still A Good Life". Anthony (reprised by Bill Mumy) still rules Peaksville and has a daughter who also has the power.
One is not sent to The Corn Field, one is wished there. Isn't that right, Anthony?
Tier 1: Music you don't buy: $.49
Tier 2: Music you do buy: $2.99
Imagine if this were literally true: the prices you see are prices pitched to you individually based on their profile of you and your purchasing history. If your history shows you buy everything put out by a particular artist, those titles are pitched at higher prices to extract more money from your obsession-compulsion. Others may pay more or less.
It is technically feasible today: pricing not for what the market will bear but what each individual will.
I swear, there should be a law that if a MMORPG closes its servers, they open the source to the playerbase so people can create and host their own servers off of it.
It's called the public domain, and it won't happen within your lifetime, nor that of your great grandchildren, nor even within the lifetime of the codebase.
Welcome to the new dark ages as mandated by international copyright law.
The site has set itself up to redirect slashdot referers back to slashdot.org. Copy the URL to your location bar and it will let you in.
OK, so maybe my sample size is small (two players: RCA and Philips), or because I only used component output to an HDTV, not RCA or S-Video, but I'll test the Panasonic portable and the Humax TiVo w/DVD-R just the same. But surely someone that maintains a database of DVD player capabilities has more thorough data.
I feel no need at all to test the computers' software players.
Of course, your solution of buying four drives and a new computer case would work, too
Don't be so sure about that either. I could see the system balking at having multiple drives of differing regions. I can see software getting created with the presumption that you have only one DVD-capable drive in your system and refusing to work with any other than the first one it finds, in addition to requiring the hardware match the software's opinion of authorized region, the latter also restricted in the number of region changes.
Things like this make me glad I don't throw away my old computers. Anyone have a program that will turn any file into an audio signal suitable for piping into an Apple ]['s cassette port? Preferably something able to split the file into 16 KiB chunks.
"But Vista will lock out DVD drives that have a region of 0, and that's the bigger issue at hand..."
The right hand specifically: most porn is region 0.
Region 0 drives, not region 0 discs. It is drives that allow playback of any disc regardless of region they're obsoleting.
And it isn't just porn in region zero: the entire run of The Tomorrow People is already available from the UK on Region 0 discs, and most players in the US can convert PAL content to NTSC. Though after the currency conversion it does cost a lot more, and that's before postage and packing charges.
Wanna get on the Internet? Get one of those "Trusted" OSs (you know, the only kind that ISPs will legally be able to allow...).
And they'll be able to do it under the guise of "quarantining" your insecure system. Nevermind that an RPC1 DVD-ROM drive has as much to do with the Internet as an air conditioner in a garbage truck has to do with homeland security.
Hmm, disbarment, or disbarment with incarceration, fines, and a criminal record. Hmm, decisions, decisions.
No, that's 50%. Their scale has no zero, so the lowest a game can be rated is 1/5. Any worse than that and it stays unrated and lampooned as a "Game You Should Never Buy" such as:
"Games so bad we couldn't review them because our rating scale doesn't have a zero. Don't say we didn't warn you."
To enjoy X-Play you need to realize that the most entertaining parts are when they mercilessly review bad games, the occasional skits, and theme episodes.
Oh yeah? Well the plural of mouse (biological) is mice, but the plural of mouse (computer) is mouses(*).
So maybe the plural of your virus (biological) is viruses and the plural of our virus (computer) can be virii.
(*) Granted, Microsoft prefers "mouse devices" (ISBN 1-55615-939-0).