Seaman: "You're in computers? Do you work late hours?" Me: "No, I guess not. Not right now at least." Seaman: "Hmm... You must be very good at what you do!... or not very thorough..." Me: "Both!"
Seaman: "Do you love yourself?" Me: "uh.... I don't know" Seaman: "Do you love yourself?" Me: "Sure. Yes." Seaman: "I bet you love yourself at least twice a day"
No game forces you to come up with ridiculous names in great quantity quite like the Pokemon games. You have to dole out dozens of names to all those weird little guys.
I named my rock guy OJ Simpson. Obviously, I was running out of names.
One night I was playing Gameboy and my wife was reading a book. I had just defeated some monster and my Pokemon gained enough experience and...
I inadvertantly shouted "OJ SIMPSON IS EVOLVING!"
Now sometimes when my wife can't understand something I say, she'll say "OJ SIMPSON IS EVOLVING!" to give me the signal that I'm not making any sense.
Yeah, I know. I was addressing two separate issues there: the success of GTA and whether Miyamoto's comments about US games were "nationalist" or not.
One of the best things about GTA is its satire of US culture. I don't think its criticisms would have been so harsh (and funny) if it were made in the US.
The GTAs would never have sold as well as they did without the great gameplay. The violence factor might have made it "cool" to Joe Gamer but the gameplay is the reason he bought it instead of just renting it or playing it at a friend's house.
Some of the previous posters should keep in mind Miyamoto is a Japanese guy talking to a Japanese audience. When they say US games are "not as good" they mean that from their own perspective in their own country. It's certainly valid for them to say that they don't like US games if they don't appeal to their sensibilities.
It's not nationalism, it's just an opinion. I'm not being nationalist if I say I don't like Korean food; I'm just not down with Kimchee that's all.
There's no technical hurdle out there preventing players from setting up their own console as a server for their friends to connect to. You can do it with some XBox and PS2 games already.
You obviously couldn't host a huge amount of players, but hosting 4-8 people is doable and enough for most games.
The only reason why more companies don't do this is:
1. The particular game is massively multiplayer 2. They want more money in subscription fees 3. They want total control over how the users play
Otherwise, there's no reason why they can't have it setup for players to have their own servers on their own consoles.
I hope it's on the 2004 list, but given its dismal sales I'm not going to hold out too much hope. Does anyone have the final sales figures for each of the Shenmues?
Although to be fair, the 2nd's sales figures are all messed up due to the US release problems. It didn't help that it didn't officially come out in the US until it was over a year and a half old.
I think the best bet if they do make a 3 is to include 2 and 1 on the disc, maybe something like the bonus disc for Wind Waker, so all the people who hadn't played it yet could get up to speed.
I saw Miyamoto on the floor at E3. He was deep in conversation with another guy so I decided not to bug him. Of course, my friend comes in later and gets his picture with him. Oh well, back at the GDC he attended a few years back I almost accidentally knocked him over when we both weren't looking where we were going. I guess that counts as a run-in with greatness.
I've heard Suzuki mention that he really wants to do Shenmue 3 if only he'd get the budget allocated. C'mon Sega, be a pal... allocate another 20 million to something that will sell a a couple hundred copies. It's good times!
I agree that gratuitous violence usually adds nothing to the game experience for most of us.
One neat thing about the GTAs is that the gratuitious violence is mostly optional. You don't have to do anything violent that doesn't forward the story. You don't have to run over random people on the street to finish the game; it's up to you.
I wouldn't call the violence in Wolfenstein 3d gratuitious because that was the whole point of the game (and most other fps'): pure violence. If you're going to be looking for quality story in any action movie/game you're going to come away disappointed.
Heck, I actually like the Jackie Chan movies that are all fight scenes more than the ones that attempt to have a lame story. It's because the reason I go to that movie is to see cool fights, not soliliquies. The story actually gets in the way of those movies. Then it's the story that's gratuitous! (see Matrix 2)
What's with those huge intros on a lot of import games from Japan?
Try playing almost any imported GBA game... there's usually a 10 minute long unskippable intro explaining meaningless backstory and character exposition. Ok ok, so Masaru's dad gambled away all the family fortune, giving his son conflicted feelings when he plays mahjongg for money and... I DON'T CARE! *presses A* *presses A* . This might also be called the Metal Gear Solid 2 effect.
This stuff might make sense in RPGs, but even simple puzzle games from Japan pull this. Even then.. it's way too long to let things go without user interaction. Is it some unspoken rule of Japanese GBA game design that the user can't be allowed to control anything until he knows every character's motivation and life history?
Maybe they'll cut out some of that intro in VJ for the US version.
If it controls at all like the PowerGlove for NES... *shudder*
My friend back in the day actually wasted money on one. Or should I say, his grandma at Xmas. We couldn't get any game to control reliably with it.
Eventually, we always had to go back to using the little controller on the arm part of it, and then it was back to the regular controllers since what was the point?
It was a good prop for halloween costumes though.
Some adults like violent games, some don't. Some like me play both the Pokemons and the GTAs. It's up to the consumer to vote with their dollars by purchasing games they want. If there's something they don't like, it won't get sold.
That doesn't mean you should self-censor games just because some people don't like the violent ones. As long as rating systems are enforced, why should you or anyone else care what kind of games other adults play. If something is so disgusting or horrible that society won't have anything to do with it, it won't sell and it will go away on its own.
Violence has been part of human entertainment since our earliest times. The Illiad and the Bible would definitely get rated M if they were videogames (AO for some parts of the Bible even!). It's naive to think that violence can not be entertaining.
It's traumatic to experience violence in real life, but on the other hand violence makes for great entertainment as long as it abstracted away and not harming actual people.
Excuse me, it's time to play some Battlefield 1942:P
My biggest problem with the old 6 button sidewinder aside from the mushy D-pad was that the 6 buttons' layout was curved weird and they were slighly off center from each other. Your fingers kind of got lost on there.
A lot of times it was hard to tell which button you were pressing without looking down at the pad. They probably should've made it more like the Saturn's 6 Button controller.
MS Office installs a program that resides in memory to help faster boot times. That's why it opens fast.. because it's never really totally unloaded.
No so coincidentally, you can set Mozilla/Firebird to stay resident in memory too in the Preferences menu.
Mozilla pops up just as fast as an IE window when that option is activated.
RE on GC was a disaster because:
1. There are not that many people with GCs without PS1s. Many RE fans had already played RE1 and RE2 long beforehand.
2. No one cares about RE anymore. Its old old news with outdated controls and gameplay which went about 3 sequels too long.
Most of the XBox offerings are PC ports or games that still have a "PC" sort of feel to them. By and large Japan never seemed all that enamored with PC games from America, so I'm not sure why MS thought they'd take to XBox games.
The only games that actually feel like console games on XBox are usually the sports games, which Japan is again not all that interested in.
If XBox is ever going to be successful over there, they need to have a lot more titles that look and play like console games instead of US PC games.
MS was supposed to have all the Asia-centric games done before XBox's release there, like the Shogi and Horse Racing Sim 9000 Plus Alpha type games. They only had a handful of those to have finished but none of them were ready for launch.
I'm not sure how much those games would've helped XBox sales over there anyways though.
Slashdot Mirror
That was a cool game.
Seaman: "You're in computers? Do you work late hours?"
Me: "No, I guess not. Not right now at least."
Seaman: "Hmm... You must be very good at what you do!... or not very thorough..."
Me: "Both!"
Seaman: "Do you love yourself?"
Me: "uh.... I don't know"
Seaman: "Do you love yourself?"
Me: "Sure. Yes."
Seaman: "I bet you love yourself at least twice a day"
No game forces you to come up with ridiculous names in great quantity quite like the Pokemon games. You have to dole out dozens of names to all those weird little guys.
I named my rock guy OJ Simpson. Obviously, I was running out of names.
One night I was playing Gameboy and my wife was reading a book. I had just defeated some monster and my Pokemon gained enough experience and...
I inadvertantly shouted "OJ SIMPSON IS EVOLVING!"
Now sometimes when my wife can't understand something I say, she'll say "OJ SIMPSON IS EVOLVING!" to give me the signal that I'm not making any sense.
Now I can play the bongos and Congo Bongo on one convenient platform
Yeah, I know. I was addressing two separate issues there: the success of GTA and whether Miyamoto's comments about US games were "nationalist" or not. One of the best things about GTA is its satire of US culture. I don't think its criticisms would have been so harsh (and funny) if it were made in the US.
The GTAs would never have sold as well as they did without the great gameplay. The violence factor might have made it "cool" to Joe Gamer but the gameplay is the reason he bought it instead of just renting it or playing it at a friend's house.
Some of the previous posters should keep in mind Miyamoto is a Japanese guy talking to a Japanese audience. When they say US games are "not as good" they mean that from their own perspective in their own country. It's certainly valid for them to say that they don't like US games if they don't appeal to their sensibilities.
It's not nationalism, it's just an opinion. I'm not being nationalist if I say I don't like Korean food; I'm just not down with Kimchee that's all.
There's no technical hurdle out there preventing players from setting up their own console as a server for their friends to connect to. You can do it with some XBox and PS2 games already.
You obviously couldn't host a huge amount of players, but hosting 4-8 people is doable and enough for most games.
The only reason why more companies don't do this is:
1. The particular game is massively multiplayer
2. They want more money in subscription fees
3. They want total control over how the users play
Otherwise, there's no reason why they can't have it setup for players to have their own servers on their own consoles.
I hope it's on the 2004 list, but given its dismal sales I'm not going to hold out too much hope. Does anyone have the final sales figures for each of the Shenmues? Although to be fair, the 2nd's sales figures are all messed up due to the US release problems. It didn't help that it didn't officially come out in the US until it was over a year and a half old. I think the best bet if they do make a 3 is to include 2 and 1 on the disc, maybe something like the bonus disc for Wind Waker, so all the people who hadn't played it yet could get up to speed.
I saw Miyamoto on the floor at E3. He was deep in conversation with another guy so I decided not to bug him. Of course, my friend comes in later and gets his picture with him. Oh well, back at the GDC he attended a few years back I almost accidentally knocked him over when we both weren't looking where we were going. I guess that counts as a run-in with greatness.
I've heard Suzuki mention that he really wants to do Shenmue 3 if only he'd get the budget allocated. C'mon Sega, be a pal... allocate another 20 million to something that will sell a a couple hundred copies. It's good times!
No Shenmue 3.... If you'll excuse me, I'll be huddled in a ball in the corner feeling sorry for myself.
I agree that gratuitous violence usually adds nothing to the game experience for most of us.
One neat thing about the GTAs is that the gratuitious violence is mostly optional. You don't have to do anything violent that doesn't forward the story. You don't have to run over random people on the street to finish the game; it's up to you.
I wouldn't call the violence in Wolfenstein 3d gratuitious because that was the whole point of the game (and most other fps'): pure violence. If you're going to be looking for quality story in any action movie/game you're going to come away disappointed.
Heck, I actually like the Jackie Chan movies that are all fight scenes more than the ones that attempt to have a lame story. It's because the reason I go to that movie is to see cool fights, not soliliquies. The story actually gets in the way of those movies. Then it's the story that's gratuitous! (see Matrix 2)
What's with those huge intros on a lot of import games from Japan?
Try playing almost any imported GBA game... there's usually a 10 minute long unskippable intro explaining meaningless backstory and character exposition. Ok ok, so Masaru's dad gambled away all the family fortune, giving his son conflicted feelings when he plays mahjongg for money and... I DON'T CARE! *presses A* *presses A* . This might also be called the Metal Gear Solid 2 effect.
This stuff might make sense in RPGs, but even simple puzzle games from Japan pull this. Even then.. it's way too long to let things go without user interaction. Is it some unspoken rule of Japanese GBA game design that the user can't be allowed to control anything until he knows every character's motivation and life history?
Maybe they'll cut out some of that intro in VJ for the US version.
If it controls at all like the PowerGlove for NES... *shudder* My friend back in the day actually wasted money on one. Or should I say, his grandma at Xmas. We couldn't get any game to control reliably with it. Eventually, we always had to go back to using the little controller on the arm part of it, and then it was back to the regular controllers since what was the point? It was a good prop for halloween costumes though.
Some adults like violent games, some don't. Some like me play both the Pokemons and the GTAs. It's up to the consumer to vote with their dollars by purchasing games they want. If there's something they don't like, it won't get sold. That doesn't mean you should self-censor games just because some people don't like the violent ones. As long as rating systems are enforced, why should you or anyone else care what kind of games other adults play. If something is so disgusting or horrible that society won't have anything to do with it, it won't sell and it will go away on its own. Violence has been part of human entertainment since our earliest times. The Illiad and the Bible would definitely get rated M if they were videogames (AO for some parts of the Bible even!). It's naive to think that violence can not be entertaining. It's traumatic to experience violence in real life, but on the other hand violence makes for great entertainment as long as it abstracted away and not harming actual people. Excuse me, it's time to play some Battlefield 1942 :P
Heh heh... this would explain why the program I was working on has such a lousy frame rate all of a sudden. *shakes fist*
And I thought it was just my crappy code! Oh wait.. never mind.
My Toshiba Satellite was pulling some of this auto-shutdown nonsense until I downloaded and flashed a new BIOS from their website.
Problem fixed ( at least for my model ).
My biggest problem with the old 6 button sidewinder aside from the mushy D-pad was that the 6 buttons' layout was curved weird and they were slighly off center from each other. Your fingers kind of got lost on there.
A lot of times it was hard to tell which button you were pressing without looking down at the pad. They probably should've made it more like the Saturn's 6 Button controller.
They should just replace all the FF characters in there with their basic FF archtypes instead:
Spikey haired loner hero man
Hot chick with long brown hair
Jovial doofus buddy
Cheerful ditz
Some sorta guy that is/resembles an animal
MS Office installs a program that resides in memory to help faster boot times. That's why it opens fast.. because it's never really totally unloaded. No so coincidentally, you can set Mozilla/Firebird to stay resident in memory too in the Preferences menu. Mozilla pops up just as fast as an IE window when that option is activated.
RE on GC was a disaster because: 1. There are not that many people with GCs without PS1s. Many RE fans had already played RE1 and RE2 long beforehand. 2. No one cares about RE anymore. Its old old news with outdated controls and gameplay which went about 3 sequels too long.
Most of the XBox offerings are PC ports or games that still have a "PC" sort of feel to them. By and large Japan never seemed all that enamored with PC games from America, so I'm not sure why MS thought they'd take to XBox games. The only games that actually feel like console games on XBox are usually the sports games, which Japan is again not all that interested in. If XBox is ever going to be successful over there, they need to have a lot more titles that look and play like console games instead of US PC games.
MS was supposed to have all the Asia-centric games done before XBox's release there, like the Shogi and Horse Racing Sim 9000 Plus Alpha type games. They only had a handful of those to have finished but none of them were ready for launch. I'm not sure how much those games would've helped XBox sales over there anyways though.
The GTA series uses those buttons too.
Actually, I think the first game to use L3/R3 was Ape Escape for the PS1. It was the first PSX game to actually require the Dual Shock