This would mean that they'd actually have to read the name. Who reads anything anymore??? You have us nerds...That have seen the Nintendo ad telling us how to pronounce it and everyone else...That will hear it being pronounced in commercials.
Mario Kart DS has 32 honest-to-god real tracks...It has 64 if you count mirrored tracks, but that's just cheating. If we get technical, the game really only has 16 original tracks. The other 16 tracks are from other Mario Kart games...Four from each of the four older Mario Kart titles...Those being Super Mario Kart, Mart Kart: Super Circuit, Mario Kart 64, and Mario Kart: Double Dash.
As long as you're not in a jeep speeding across some rocky desert, you should be fine. Accuracy is important in the game, but it's VERY forgiving. I play the game on train and bus rides all the time, and I haven't had problems...Well, at least none related to the bumpy ride...Trauma Center is a very difficult game. It's nice to see a game that doesn't think gamers' hands need to be held for more than the first two minutes.
From what little we've been told about how the game pad works, there is a Gyration-made gyroscope in the game pad that can detect basic movement as well as angle, rotation, and yaw. The sensors, as far as I know, are, as you said, meant to keep track of the game pad's movement in 3D space.
Theoretically, the Revolution should be able to tell how high or low you are holding the game pad in relation to the television screen. On that note, Nintendo says they've tested the game pad on a wide variety of televisions, front and rear projection, LCD, CRT, and Plasma up to 100" in size and they say the controller has worked flawlessly across the board. Why they bothered to test the game pad on different types of televisions is beyond me. That leads me to believe that the game pad does, indeed, have a sort of light gun built in to help with accuracy when the game pad is pointed directly at the screen. However, we do know from those that have actually used the Revolution that the game pad does not need to be pointed at the screen for the Revolution to be able to pick up your movements.
Needless to say, it sounds like an odd setup Nintendo has come up with. I'd be fascinated to hear all about its technical aspects once Nintendo actually lets the public know what's going on internally.
The Virtual Boy was a goof up on Nintendo's part because, as it seemed, they thought Yokoi was invincible...I'll give you that one, but R.O.B. was never meant to sell well. Nintendo made two whole games for the thing...It was nothing more than an excuse for Nintendo to get its console in electronic stores.
Before anything else, I would hardly call Game Developers a "gaming magazine". The magazine is very clearly not for gamers, so what gamers care about is not important here.
Now, with that said...
EA is a horrible company to deal with, but you can't say the quality of EA's games are heading down the crapper. EA's games averaged 81% in a Rotten Tomatoes-esque review of all the games they had released in the last year. The only companies in the top twenty that beat EA here were LucasArts with 81.6% and Microsoft with 80.56%. Even if you don't particularly like their games a LOT of people do and you can't hold that against EA.
Also, this has little to do with money made...Were that the case it would be EA first and Nintendo second. The first year Game Developer compiled this list, they went with profit..After that they went with a score based system.
Actually, I have the magazine here, so I'll just post their explanation...
The Game Developers Top 20 ranks publishers using a score calculated from each publisher's performance in several measures. First, a list of the top 30 publishers is drawn up based on revenue or, when revenue data is unavailable, estimates.
Then each publisher is given a score based on the following six measures - annual turnover; number of releases; average review score; quality of producers; reliability of milestone payments; and the quality of staff pay and perks.
Annual turnover figures come from the publisher's annual accounts or, when these are not public, from out own estimates based on the sales of games they release. The number of releases, which counts the publication of the same game on different formats as separate releases, come from the publishers or, when they were unable to provide this information, from their web sites and dedicated gaming sites. The average review score ratings were based on information from gamerankings.com. A confidential survey of developers provided data for the quality of producers, reliability of of milestone payments, and the pay and perks.
The top 30 publishers were ranked according to each of the six measures. The lowest scoring publisher received a score of one, the next lowest a score of two and so on until the highest scoring publisher received a rating of 30. This was repeated for all measures and totals were weighted and added together to give a final score which determined the Top 20 Publishers list for 2005.
Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of the information contained within the article. But we cannot guarantee its accuracy or completeness. We do not accept liability for any direct, indirect, or consequential loss arising from its use.
Anyways, EA's scores looked something like this... 126 releases 17% externally developed titles 8.52 Producer Rating 8.50 Milestone Payment Rating 8.91 Pay and Perks 81 Average Review Score
I'm not going to go down the list, but the top five were...
Activision... 76 releases 63% externally developed titles 9.25 Producer Rating 9.60 Milestone Payment Rating 9.40 Pay and Perks 65.4 Average Review Score
Microsoft... 20 releases 60% externally developed titles 9.60 Producer Rating 9.85 Milestone Payment Rating 10 Pay and Perks 80.56 Average Review Score
Nintendo... 69 releases 32% externally developed titles 8.50 Producer Rating 10 Milestone Payment Rating 8.50 Pay and Perks 76.08 Average Review Score
Sony Computer Entertainment... 41 releases 37% externally developed titles 9.18 Producer Rating 9.55 Milestone Payment Rating 8.50 Pay and Perks 75.07 Average Review Score
I almost forgot...The reason you can't get on a McDonald's WiFi network is because you need to pay for a Wayport membership. If I understand this article correctly, what Nintendo is doing is making a deal with Wayport to give DS owners free WiFi access at Wayport access points at McDonald's restaurants.
Because you seem to be confusing things...The WiFi access spots a local McDonald's are REAL 802.11b/b wireless spots. McDonald's has been offering them for years for use with laptops or whatever other WiFi enabled device you own. Just go to their WiFi site to get info.
No clue...Some people seem to believe they are not allowed to enjoy a medium once they get past a certain age. Perhaps they're afraid someone will burst through their living room door and laugh at them Nelson style.
I find it even funnier when you realize ReformedExCon is replying to a thread about Adult Swim...I mean, if you're afraid liking animation will leave you looked down upon by your peers, it may be best not to bash the animated series of TV's most popular late night programming block for adults ages 18-34. Hell...If you count Adult Swim as a separate entity and wholly independent channel as Cartoon Network has Adult Swim listed with Nielsen, Adult Swim is the most popular cable channel for adults ages 18-34...For both men and women...WooHoo!!! for being too mature to enjoy animation.
Maybe not for $50 but is $53 close enough??? Of course...If I can go up to a hundred bucks I can get myself a nice USB 2.0, 2.5" 60GB HDD for only $95. Most of the Xbox 360's accessories are not what I would call expensive, but the HDD and memory cards are are simply ridiculous. $40 for a 64MB flash drive??? You can find smaller USB thumb drives up in the 256MB and 512MB range for just under $40. Aside from that, the X360 isn't too expensive.
I think you completely missed the point here. This is not a GameBoy for big time gamers...All of them already have their pockets filled with a DS and PSP. This is a pure vanity purchase...This is for the people that would rather use their money on a minuscule iPod mini rather than spend the few extra bucks on its bigger brother. That's really all their is to it...Something that'll fit inside your pocket next to your tiny MP3 player or in a purse.
You do have to hand it to Nintendo...Of the current generation of consoles, they and Sega are the only ones that managed to get more than one exclusive title on Game Rankings' top ten list. Not only that, but they've managed to do that two generations in a row...And, like Sega, they did it with exclusive titles no less.
Though that will probably change sometime in the future when Capcom ports Resident Evil 4 to some other console whenever their contract with Nintendo is up.
From everything I've heard, you're exactly right on that account. The Xbox360 and PS3's processors are in-order processors...It was a complaint several developers had with both consoles at this year's GDC.
True enough, but there's quite a difference between unveiling a console and simply sharing your vision for the console. For all we know, that sharing will be nothing more than Reggie being up on stage talking about how revolutionary the Revolution will be...Not actually showing any hardware or sharing any specs.
If you read this article you'll see that Reggie Fils-Aime says: This year's E3 is not Revolution's coming out party.
So yeah...All this talk about the Revolution being a no-show at E3 is nothing new. Besides...If you take note, many of those Google links seem to be questioning whether or not the Revolution will be unveiled at E3.
I believe you're correct here. I was always under the impression that the PS2 could, indeed, handle more flat shaded polygons than either the GAMECUBE or the Xbox. Not that millions of flat shaded polygons are very interesting to look at. Though I do have to wonder...Can such high quality models even be loaded onto the PS2 given it's relatively small cache of RAM.
900m is about as large as you can make the thing. Sadly, each of the Eternal levels seems to have a maximum size...Try as I may there seems to be a limit I cannot break in any of the three Eternal Modes. One cool thing in the Eternal Modes are the appearances of the small prince's family members. In the very first Eternal Level you can find a cousin of yours eating all the food in the family's fridge.
What I would rather see in a Katamari Damacy game is a random level generator. It's not like the worlds are all that complex...I can't imagine it being too difficult for the game to randomly generate these levels.
I love OpenOffice, but this preview won't even run on my Window XP with its Blackbox desktop environment. Very annoying...Works perfectly otherwise. I just hate the fact that I can't spend a bit of time getting used to OpenOffice 2.0 before the final, and stable, build is released.
I've never had problems with my normal mouse. I have my middle finger on the right mouse button and my index finger over the scroll wheel, adjusting it ever so slightly to the left when I need to click on something. I never leave my thumb to drag around on the desk or mouse pad...I usually have my thumb ride high enough on the mouse that, if I wanted to, I could use it to click on the left mouse button. I've never had any problems with my wrist...And I sit behind a computer far more than I should be allowed to. No special mouse or anything...Just a simple, old fashion Microsoft optical mouse.
Restock is probably not the best word to use here...They probably just have to go through the proccess of adding that particular copy back to their database, as I would imagine they remove the copy from it so they wouldn't be left with their computers saying they have three extra copies of Friday Night Lights when those copies are acually now owned by three people across the city.
I have a question...What's a late fee??? Isn't a late fee at Blockbuster an amount of money charged to customer for returning a movie late??? If that's the case then how can any of this be considered a late fee??? You aren't returning anything...And if you aren't returning anything how can you be late in returning it???
Besides, whenever you rent a movie the cashier AND the reciept clearly spell out to you that the movie has a due date, and to make matters even simpler the cashier will usually try to shove down your throat the Blockbuster Movie Pass...And the Movie Pass's sole purpose is so that you can rent an indefinite number of movies, two or three at a time, and keep them for as long as you damn well please.
I have a Movie Pass at Blockbuster, so I'm in the store nearly every day of the week and I hear the cashiers telling customers ahead of me the day movies are due and that, if they would like, they can keep the movie for an extra day or two free of charge...Adding to that a little note that if they miss the due date by a week they're going to get charged as though they bought the movie and they are free to come bak and pick up the DVD's case. Then they ask the customers if they can be interested in some soda or popcorn...Yeah...The cashiers at my Blockbuster talk way too damn much, but at least nobody ever leaves there confused over how the new system works.
That's way too much to type out. I usually use me@you.com...I know I can't be the only one that's lazy and doesn't feel like using a valid e-mail address.
The GBA can be, but with the DS Nintendo has created a console that cannot be emulated...Unless you know of some way to emulate a touchscreen on the PSP ^_^
Oopsee...My mistake...I must be confusing games then...There have been so many games at Rare moved around and pushed back it's hard to keep up. Not as though I've been trying very hard considering most of their talent left before in the years leadiing up to their buyout by Microsoft and before.
Slashdot Mirror
This would mean that they'd actually have to read the name. Who reads anything anymore??? You have us nerds...That have seen the Nintendo ad telling us how to pronounce it and everyone else...That will hear it being pronounced in commercials.
Mario Kart DS has 32 honest-to-god real tracks...It has 64 if you count mirrored tracks, but that's just cheating. If we get technical, the game really only has 16 original tracks. The other 16 tracks are from other Mario Kart games...Four from each of the four older Mario Kart titles...Those being Super Mario Kart, Mart Kart: Super Circuit, Mario Kart 64, and Mario Kart: Double Dash.
As long as you're not in a jeep speeding across some rocky desert, you should be fine. Accuracy is important in the game, but it's VERY forgiving. I play the game on train and bus rides all the time, and I haven't had problems...Well, at least none related to the bumpy ride...Trauma Center is a very difficult game. It's nice to see a game that doesn't think gamers' hands need to be held for more than the first two minutes.
From what little we've been told about how the game pad works, there is a Gyration-made gyroscope in the game pad that can detect basic movement as well as angle, rotation, and yaw. The sensors, as far as I know, are, as you said, meant to keep track of the game pad's movement in 3D space. Theoretically, the Revolution should be able to tell how high or low you are holding the game pad in relation to the television screen. On that note, Nintendo says they've tested the game pad on a wide variety of televisions, front and rear projection, LCD, CRT, and Plasma up to 100" in size and they say the controller has worked flawlessly across the board. Why they bothered to test the game pad on different types of televisions is beyond me. That leads me to believe that the game pad does, indeed, have a sort of light gun built in to help with accuracy when the game pad is pointed directly at the screen. However, we do know from those that have actually used the Revolution that the game pad does not need to be pointed at the screen for the Revolution to be able to pick up your movements. Needless to say, it sounds like an odd setup Nintendo has come up with. I'd be fascinated to hear all about its technical aspects once Nintendo actually lets the public know what's going on internally.
The Virtual Boy was a goof up on Nintendo's part because, as it seemed, they thought Yokoi was invincible...I'll give you that one, but R.O.B. was never meant to sell well. Nintendo made two whole games for the thing...It was nothing more than an excuse for Nintendo to get its console in electronic stores.
Now, with that said...
EA is a horrible company to deal with, but you can't say the quality of EA's games are heading down the crapper. EA's games averaged 81% in a Rotten Tomatoes-esque review of all the games they had released in the last year. The only companies in the top twenty that beat EA here were LucasArts with 81.6% and Microsoft with 80.56%. Even if you don't particularly like their games a LOT of people do and you can't hold that against EA.
Also, this has little to do with money made...Were that the case it would be EA first and Nintendo second. The first year Game Developer compiled this list, they went with profit..After that they went with a score based system.
Actually, I have the magazine here, so I'll just post their explanation...
Anyways, EA's scores looked something like this...
126 releases
17% externally developed titles
8.52 Producer Rating
8.50 Milestone Payment Rating
8.91 Pay and Perks
81 Average Review Score
I'm not going to go down the list, but the top five were...
Activision...
76 releases
63% externally developed titles
9.25 Producer Rating
9.60 Milestone Payment Rating
9.40 Pay and Perks
65.4 Average Review Score
Microsoft...
20 releases
60% externally developed titles
9.60 Producer Rating
9.85 Milestone Payment Rating
10 Pay and Perks
80.56 Average Review Score
Nintendo...
69 releases
32% externally developed titles
8.50 Producer Rating
10 Milestone Payment Rating
8.50 Pay and Perks
76.08 Average Review Score
Sony Computer Entertainment...
41 releases
37% externally developed titles
9.18 Producer Rating
9.55 Milestone Payment Rating
8.50 Pay and Perks
75.07 Average Review Score
I almost forgot...The reason you can't get on a McDonald's WiFi network is because you need to pay for a Wayport membership. If I understand this article correctly, what Nintendo is doing is making a deal with Wayport to give DS owners free WiFi access at Wayport access points at McDonald's restaurants.
Because you seem to be confusing things...The WiFi access spots a local McDonald's are REAL 802.11b/b wireless spots. McDonald's has been offering them for years for use with laptops or whatever other WiFi enabled device you own. Just go to their WiFi site to get info.
No clue...Some people seem to believe they are not allowed to enjoy a medium once they get past a certain age. Perhaps they're afraid someone will burst through their living room door and laugh at them Nelson style.
I find it even funnier when you realize ReformedExCon is replying to a thread about Adult Swim...I mean, if you're afraid liking animation will leave you looked down upon by your peers, it may be best not to bash the animated series of TV's most popular late night programming block for adults ages 18-34. Hell...If you count Adult Swim as a separate entity and wholly independent channel as Cartoon Network has Adult Swim listed with Nielsen, Adult Swim is the most popular cable channel for adults ages 18-34...For both men and women...WooHoo!!! for being too mature to enjoy animation.
Maybe not for $50 but is $53 close enough??? Of course...If I can go up to a hundred bucks I can get myself a nice USB 2.0, 2.5" 60GB HDD for only $95. Most of the Xbox 360's accessories are not what I would call expensive, but the HDD and memory cards are are simply ridiculous. $40 for a 64MB flash drive??? You can find smaller USB thumb drives up in the 256MB and 512MB range for just under $40. Aside from that, the X360 isn't too expensive.
That's about right...Though I hear it's closer to 4"x2"x0.7"...Yeah, I know, I'm splitting hairs there, but that's what I read.
I think you completely missed the point here. This is not a GameBoy for big time gamers...All of them already have their pockets filled with a DS and PSP. This is a pure vanity purchase...This is for the people that would rather use their money on a minuscule iPod mini rather than spend the few extra bucks on its bigger brother. That's really all their is to it...Something that'll fit inside your pocket next to your tiny MP3 player or in a purse.
You do have to hand it to Nintendo...Of the current generation of consoles, they and Sega are the only ones that managed to get more than one exclusive title on Game Rankings' top ten list. Not only that, but they've managed to do that two generations in a row...And, like Sega, they did it with exclusive titles no less. Though that will probably change sometime in the future when Capcom ports Resident Evil 4 to some other console whenever their contract with Nintendo is up.
From everything I've heard, you're exactly right on that account. The Xbox360 and PS3's processors are in-order processors...It was a complaint several developers had with both consoles at this year's GDC.
True enough, but there's quite a difference between unveiling a console and simply sharing your vision for the console. For all we know, that sharing will be nothing more than Reggie being up on stage talking about how revolutionary the Revolution will be...Not actually showing any hardware or sharing any specs.
If you read this article you'll see that Reggie Fils-Aime says: This year's E3 is not Revolution's coming out party. So yeah...All this talk about the Revolution being a no-show at E3 is nothing new. Besides...If you take note, many of those Google links seem to be questioning whether or not the Revolution will be unveiled at E3.
I believe you're correct here. I was always under the impression that the PS2 could, indeed, handle more flat shaded polygons than either the GAMECUBE or the Xbox. Not that millions of flat shaded polygons are very interesting to look at. Though I do have to wonder...Can such high quality models even be loaded onto the PS2 given it's relatively small cache of RAM.
900m is about as large as you can make the thing. Sadly, each of the Eternal levels seems to have a maximum size...Try as I may there seems to be a limit I cannot break in any of the three Eternal Modes. One cool thing in the Eternal Modes are the appearances of the small prince's family members. In the very first Eternal Level you can find a cousin of yours eating all the food in the family's fridge. What I would rather see in a Katamari Damacy game is a random level generator. It's not like the worlds are all that complex...I can't imagine it being too difficult for the game to randomly generate these levels.
I love OpenOffice, but this preview won't even run on my Window XP with its Blackbox desktop environment. Very annoying...Works perfectly otherwise. I just hate the fact that I can't spend a bit of time getting used to OpenOffice 2.0 before the final, and stable, build is released.
I've never had problems with my normal mouse. I have my middle finger on the right mouse button and my index finger over the scroll wheel, adjusting it ever so slightly to the left when I need to click on something. I never leave my thumb to drag around on the desk or mouse pad...I usually have my thumb ride high enough on the mouse that, if I wanted to, I could use it to click on the left mouse button. I've never had any problems with my wrist...And I sit behind a computer far more than I should be allowed to. No special mouse or anything...Just a simple, old fashion Microsoft optical mouse.
But what is there to restock?
Restock is probably not the best word to use here...They probably just have to go through the proccess of adding that particular copy back to their database, as I would imagine they remove the copy from it so they wouldn't be left with their computers saying they have three extra copies of Friday Night Lights when those copies are acually now owned by three people across the city.
I have a question...What's a late fee??? Isn't a late fee at Blockbuster an amount of money charged to customer for returning a movie late??? If that's the case then how can any of this be considered a late fee??? You aren't returning anything...And if you aren't returning anything how can you be late in returning it???
Besides, whenever you rent a movie the cashier AND the reciept clearly spell out to you that the movie has a due date, and to make matters even simpler the cashier will usually try to shove down your throat the Blockbuster Movie Pass...And the Movie Pass's sole purpose is so that you can rent an indefinite number of movies, two or three at a time, and keep them for as long as you damn well please.
I have a Movie Pass at Blockbuster, so I'm in the store nearly every day of the week and I hear the cashiers telling customers ahead of me the day movies are due and that, if they would like, they can keep the movie for an extra day or two free of charge...Adding to that a little note that if they miss the due date by a week they're going to get charged as though they bought the movie and they are free to come bak and pick up the DVD's case. Then they ask the customers if they can be interested in some soda or popcorn...Yeah...The cashiers at my Blockbuster talk way too damn much, but at least nobody ever leaves there confused over how the new system works.
That's way too much to type out. I usually use me@you.com...I know I can't be the only one that's lazy and doesn't feel like using a valid e-mail address.
The GBA can be, but with the DS Nintendo has created a console that cannot be emulated...Unless you know of some way to emulate a touchscreen on the PSP ^_^
Oopsee...My mistake...I must be confusing games then...There have been so many games at Rare moved around and pushed back it's hard to keep up. Not as though I've been trying very hard considering most of their talent left before in the years leadiing up to their buyout by Microsoft and before.