First of all, most others would not say their last major success was the N64, they would say it was the beginning of the downfall. Sure, it was their first 3D console, but as an earlier poster said, they made a lot of 3rd parties mad by using cartridges, which also limited textures and such because of the limited memory of the cartridges.
You say the GCN has a clunky shape, but it seems to me that I can place it anywhere near my TV without it looking out of place. If I have an extra 6-8 inches on the side of my TV, I can put it there. DVD functionality should matter not these days. I just bought a DVD player better than both PS2 and Xbox for $30.
Xbox has its various Halos. You mean both 1 & 2? Is that all the good games it has? PS2 has Katamari Damacy, and GCN has no quirky games like this? No Wario Ware? No Super Monkey Ball? No Pikmin? And it's blasphemy to say that MK64 is better than MK:DD. The graphics and framerate are so bad in MK64 that it's nearly unplayable. I'd much rather play the original Mario Kart with sprites in Mode7 than play with 2D sprite characters in a 3D world.
And where exactly is the problem with mini-DVD discs, as you call them? The only problem I see is that it deters pirates, not only because of the smaller disc size (which you can probably buy nowadays), but also because the track is written and read from outside-in, not like normal CDs/DVDs which are read inside-out.
Don't remember where I read it, but I believe that Nintendo is using an extremely similar API for the Revolution so people who have used the GCN SDK will be familiar with the Revolution SDK.
You must be crazy! Everyone knows that this so called "fun factor" doesn't matter when you make games. It's only about the graphics (and sometimes the movie/TV licensing). And software QA takes a backseat to it all!
Faster, possibly. I've never tried one of those $1200 P4EE CPUs. Cheaper, definitely. It's the main reason I go with AMD. Produce less heat?! Since when? Every Intel machine I've seen runs cooler than a supposedly equal AMD machine.
Have you ever disassembled them? They have at least 2 5-inch diameter fans, along with a lot of styrofoam in order to pipe heat to the correct locations. And stickered all over the styrofoam was warnings saying that it is functional to the design and to remove it would be certain death for the machine (not in those words exactly).
I only ever called it the Itanic because one of my professors, who works (or worked) at Intel and researched the architecture very extensively to document it also called it the Itanic. According to him, it was basically what everyone else has been saying so far.. great idea, bad execution.
But do you realize how many American parents (or other countries for that matter. I'm American, so I see how they act every day) will buy their kids basically whatever they want so they don't have to parent their own child?
My girlfriend's 11 year old cousin owned a DS and returned it because the games weren't good enough. So he got a PSP and NFSU2 (*DING DING* certain high profile racing game that takes 2 minutes to start playing) and so far he's returned at least 2 units because of display defects.
But that's besides the point. It seems that everywhere I go, I see parents spend hundreds of dollars on something the child says they want, and the parent asks no questions. I see parents buy/rent GTA:SA for 8-10 year olds.
And even when the adults are parenting, some children still get access to video games. I had a teacher who played Vice City with his 2 year old, but played it nicely and tried not to kill anybody. My nephew is 3 years old and can sign online and play games without any instruction from his dad anymore.
You can rarely go wrong with Bomberman. But aside from the fact that it's Bomberman, it supports 8 player wireless from a single card. So if you happen to know 7 other people who own a DS, only one needs to own Bomberman to have some multiplayer fun.
I own a DS and I've played a PSP enough to make a decision on the aesthetics of it.
-Both are uncomfortable to use, the PSP more so. PSP's buttons are set too far near the edge, and the analog control can't be used without breaking my thumb. The discomfort of the DS only hinders my gameplay while using the control pad.
-The PSP has a much nicer screen, but it's not powerful enough for such a nice screen. You can see the imperfections much easier because of the large screen. The DS on the other hand has fairly bad 3D, but it's somewhat hidden by the smaller screen.
-When they both came out, they each had like one game worth buying. To my knowledge now, PSP maybe has a few, DS has a few (at least I own a few). And I seem to see a lot more worth owning in the future for DS.
The problem is, most people liken a 1-10 score to a school grade, with 100-90 being A, 89-80 B, 79-70 C, and so on. So the people rating the game cater to that. So, as school grading goes, C is mediocre, therefore, average games get a 7-ish score. Bad games get less than 7, and really bad ones get less than 6. I've seen some pretty bad scores on IGN, mostly from the PC channel, most from Ivan Sulic.
I've used a few Thinkpads at my previous job, and I didn't like using the nipple as the mouse. But if you were a fan of the nipple for scrolling, I'd suggest an IBM ScrollPoint II mouse. It makes scrolling easy, as all you have to do is lean the little joystick down or upward, left or right. Made viewing web pages real nice to have an analog control for the scrollbar using only a finger. It's too bad it wasn't more widely supported in games. Many I played didn't even recognize it, and most that did recognize it had it calibrated way to sensitively, to the point where the slightest touch would send my weapons into a frenzy.
I don't think the ideal car would be controlled by a single joystick; rather I would tell it where I want to go, then do something else while it drives there.
Mario Kart definitely slipped my mind there. Looking forward to that one. And I hope that Crystal Chronicles isn't as bad as it was on GCN. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game.. but I didn't like that I was basically forced to play with the same people all the time (if you did a few levels without a character, they were too underpowered for the higher levels).
Usually when someone makes a statement like that, I'm all over it with a list. But you've got me there. Please Nintendo.. get some good games for DS. I'd buy ZooKeeper, but I already have Bejeweled on my Palm.. plus I'm not sure how it would scale to multiplayer.
I really can't even think of any good multiplayer games that are coming up off the top of my head. Maybe Animal Crossing DS will allow you to have some fun with other people.
"We will continue to buyout good companies like Origin, Maxis, and Bullfrog and convince them to make crappy games like we do now."
They don't have to convince them to make crappy games, since they own them. All they have to do is "restructure" until the people in charge of making the good games are assimilated into the rest of EA and no longer have any will to live.
The sig never said that Anakin kills Padme (unless he changed it since you called him out). At this point right now it says "Anakin force-chokes Padme", which is completely true.
Wait until you get to Hell's Precipice. Last mission in the (linear) game, but it makes me hate it so much. Earlier tonight, there was about 100 people in district 1, with close to 30 warriors, and maybe 5 monks looking for groups. Then when I actually got a group, we wiped within 15 minutes. Thirsty River was a joke compared to this.
Don't you know that "under $465" is advertiser speak for $464.99? Watch a commercial that actually advertises a price. Every single one of them says under [price figure], then shows in small print that the actually price is a penny less.
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I'm going to be nit-picky here.
First of all, most others would not say their last major success was the N64, they would say it was the beginning of the downfall. Sure, it was their first 3D console, but as an earlier poster said, they made a lot of 3rd parties mad by using cartridges, which also limited textures and such because of the limited memory of the cartridges.
You say the GCN has a clunky shape, but it seems to me that I can place it anywhere near my TV without it looking out of place. If I have an extra 6-8 inches on the side of my TV, I can put it there. DVD functionality should matter not these days. I just bought a DVD player better than both PS2 and Xbox for $30.
Xbox has its various Halos. You mean both 1 & 2? Is that all the good games it has? PS2 has Katamari Damacy, and GCN has no quirky games like this? No Wario Ware? No Super Monkey Ball? No Pikmin? And it's blasphemy to say that MK64 is better than MK:DD. The graphics and framerate are so bad in MK64 that it's nearly unplayable. I'd much rather play the original Mario Kart with sprites in Mode7 than play with 2D sprite characters in a 3D world.
And where exactly is the problem with mini-DVD discs, as you call them? The only problem I see is that it deters pirates, not only because of the smaller disc size (which you can probably buy nowadays), but also because the track is written and read from outside-in, not like normal CDs/DVDs which are read inside-out.
Don't remember where I read it, but I believe that Nintendo is using an extremely similar API for the Revolution so people who have used the GCN SDK will be familiar with the Revolution SDK.
You must be crazy! Everyone knows that this so called "fun factor" doesn't matter when you make games. It's only about the graphics (and sometimes the movie/TV licensing). And software QA takes a backseat to it all!
See The Wheel of Reincarnation.
I hope I get Keira Knightley's underwear!
I see. I've never actually had the pleasure of using an A64 yet.
I prefer AMD, too, but come on!
Faster, possibly. I've never tried one of those $1200 P4EE CPUs.
Cheaper, definitely. It's the main reason I go with AMD.
Produce less heat?! Since when? Every Intel machine I've seen runs cooler than a supposedly equal AMD machine.
Have you ever disassembled them? They have at least 2 5-inch diameter fans, along with a lot of styrofoam in order to pipe heat to the correct locations. And stickered all over the styrofoam was warnings saying that it is functional to the design and to remove it would be certain death for the machine (not in those words exactly).
I only ever called it the Itanic because one of my professors, who works (or worked) at Intel and researched the architecture very extensively to document it also called it the Itanic. According to him, it was basically what everyone else has been saying so far.. great idea, bad execution.
But do you realize how many American parents (or other countries for that matter. I'm American, so I see how they act every day) will buy their kids basically whatever they want so they don't have to parent their own child?
My girlfriend's 11 year old cousin owned a DS and returned it because the games weren't good enough. So he got a PSP and NFSU2 (*DING DING* certain high profile racing game that takes 2 minutes to start playing) and so far he's returned at least 2 units because of display defects.
But that's besides the point. It seems that everywhere I go, I see parents spend hundreds of dollars on something the child says they want, and the parent asks no questions. I see parents buy/rent GTA:SA for 8-10 year olds.
And even when the adults are parenting, some children still get access to video games. I had a teacher who played Vice City with his 2 year old, but played it nicely and tried not to kill anybody. My nephew is 3 years old and can sign online and play games without any instruction from his dad anymore.
Kirby's Canvas Curse is a good game. Whether or not the character for the game is original, the concept definitely is.
You can rarely go wrong with Bomberman. But aside from the fact that it's Bomberman, it supports 8 player wireless from a single card. So if you happen to know 7 other people who own a DS, only one needs to own Bomberman to have some multiplayer fun.
I own a DS and I've played a PSP enough to make a decision on the aesthetics of it.
-Both are uncomfortable to use, the PSP more so. PSP's buttons are set too far near the edge, and the analog control can't be used without breaking my thumb. The discomfort of the DS only hinders my gameplay while using the control pad.
-The PSP has a much nicer screen, but it's not powerful enough for such a nice screen. You can see the imperfections much easier because of the large screen. The DS on the other hand has fairly bad 3D, but it's somewhat hidden by the smaller screen.
-When they both came out, they each had like one game worth buying. To my knowledge now, PSP maybe has a few, DS has a few (at least I own a few). And I seem to see a lot more worth owning in the future for DS.
It's amazing that you can copy and paste right from the end of the article. Almost seems like you have an opinion in the matter, doesn't it?
I always do the cheapo route and do maxtor, anyway. Every WD drive I've ever owned has failed me.
The problem is, most people liken a 1-10 score to a school grade, with 100-90 being A, 89-80 B, 79-70 C, and so on. So the people rating the game cater to that. So, as school grading goes, C is mediocre, therefore, average games get a 7-ish score. Bad games get less than 7, and really bad ones get less than 6. I've seen some pretty bad scores on IGN, mostly from the PC channel, most from Ivan Sulic.
I've used a few Thinkpads at my previous job, and I didn't like using the nipple as the mouse. But if you were a fan of the nipple for scrolling, I'd suggest an IBM ScrollPoint II mouse. It makes scrolling easy, as all you have to do is lean the little joystick down or upward, left or right. Made viewing web pages real nice to have an analog control for the scrollbar using only a finger. It's too bad it wasn't more widely supported in games. Many I played didn't even recognize it, and most that did recognize it had it calibrated way to sensitively, to the point where the slightest touch would send my weapons into a frenzy.
I don't think the ideal car would be controlled by a single joystick; rather I would tell it where I want to go, then do something else while it drives there.
You mean like a taxi or a bus?
Mario Kart definitely slipped my mind there. Looking forward to that one. And I hope that Crystal Chronicles isn't as bad as it was on GCN. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game.. but I didn't like that I was basically forced to play with the same people all the time (if you did a few levels without a character, they were too underpowered for the higher levels).
Usually when someone makes a statement like that, I'm all over it with a list. But you've got me there. Please Nintendo.. get some good games for DS. I'd buy ZooKeeper, but I already have Bejeweled on my Palm.. plus I'm not sure how it would scale to multiplayer.
I really can't even think of any good multiplayer games that are coming up off the top of my head. Maybe Animal Crossing DS will allow you to have some fun with other people.
"We will continue to buyout good companies like Origin, Maxis, and Bullfrog and convince them to make crappy games like we do now."
They don't have to convince them to make crappy games, since they own them. All they have to do is "restructure" until the people in charge of making the good games are assimilated into the rest of EA and no longer have any will to live.
Wasn't Anarchy Online supposed to be a cyberpunk-ish type of game?
The sig never said that Anakin kills Padme (unless he changed it since you called him out). At this point right now it says "Anakin force-chokes Padme", which is completely true.
Don't forget that they're making the processor for the new Nintendo machine. 3 for 3 in the console department.
Wait until you get to Hell's Precipice. Last mission in the (linear) game, but it makes me hate it so much. Earlier tonight, there was about 100 people in district 1, with close to 30 warriors, and maybe 5 monks looking for groups. Then when I actually got a group, we wiped within 15 minutes. Thirsty River was a joke compared to this.
Don't you know that "under $465" is advertiser speak for $464.99? Watch a commercial that actually advertises a price. Every single one of them says under [price figure], then shows in small print that the actually price is a penny less.