Even though the Xbox itself is not manufactured any more, and as a result is becoming harder and harder to come by, the parts can still be had. I started getting DREs a lot, so I replaced my Xbox DVD-ROM drive with one from an aftermarket distributor who specializes in such things (not Lik-Sang, though I will miss them).
As a result, I don't get DREs any more, games load faster, and burned media works in the drive. I sometimes play my home video work on the Xbox, and while driving in Forza Motorsport I like to use as background freeware techno music I've downloaded from artists' sites (like Cold Storage, Imperial Project, Andreas Viklund, and Atypus).
It costs a bit (around $100 with S/H), but at least it's available.
Come to think of it, let me add Halo and Halo 2 - there are references, allusions and similarities to the Greek and Persian wars, to Norse mythology, to medieval history, and to Judeo/Christian themes and ideas. One of the main characters, an AI named Cortana who is ostensibly the protagonist's ally, is hinted to have her own agenda which may not match that of the government that created her.
Even some of the enemy characters are intelligent and complex, from the disgraced fleet commander seeking redemption through suicidal service and eventually coming to mistrust his masters, to the Prophets that rule the Covenant - Regret, who never does, Mercy, who has none, and Truth, who tells none.
Even the way the previous comment was phrased leaves loads of wiggle room.
"It won't be copy-protected to a single system". Well, it's not copy protection that's being contemplated here, so that doesn't make them liars if they nodelock.
"Any PS3 game will be playable on any PS3 system." Again, this would be true even if they nodelocked it. A nodelocking game disk will play on any system you put it in...once. And if you take "game" to mean "title" rather than "disk", it says even less; it only says that PS3 systems will play PS3 games.
And we all know that "We have no plans to do that" is bureaucracy-speak for "We're working feverishly on our plans for doing that but haven't finished those plans yet. But when we do have plans, we'll do that thing as quick as we can." The statement they made was even weaker than "We have no plans." It's "We don't know about any plans."
In other words, their denial is a non-denial that actually communicates no information, besides "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know *nothing*!", or at best, "I never said *that*!"
Here's a list of my games on the compatibility list, and which ones have emulation problems. Even the ones marked as "no problem" may have slight hesitations during full-motion video playback. Also, I haven't finished any of these on the 360 so there may be additional problems (glitches, etc) that I haven't encountered yet.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2
No problems
Battlestar Galactica
No problems
Call of Cthulhu
Intro video won't play
Crimson Skies
No problems
Darkwatch
No problems
Fable
Minor framerate choppiness and minor rendering issues
Forza Motorsport
Major game speed inconsistencies - frequent and prolonged slowdowns. Unplayable.
Ghost Recon
No problems
Ghost Recon 2
No problems
Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike
No problems
Grand Theft Auto 3
No problems
Grand Theft Auto Vice City
No problems
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
No problems
Half-Life 2
Occasional minor hitches
Halo
No problems. Actually looks better on the 360.
Halo 2
No problems. Actually looks better on the 360.
Jade Empire
No problems
Medal of Honor European Assault
No problems
Rainbox Six 3 Black Arrow
No problems
Sega GT 2002
Major gamespeed inconsistencies. Game speed averages 2.5x slower than normal. Unplayable.
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow
No problems
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
No problems
Star Wars Jedi Starfighter
No problems
Knights of the old Republic II The Sith Lords
Sound glitches during menus and tutorial help
Stubbs the Zombie
No problems. Actually looks better on the 360.
Careful there. Some of the titles on the compatibility list are basically unplayable.
Case in point: Sega GT 2002. The game runs at less than half-speed. And that's not just framerate, the game clock runs at less than half-speed, and everything responds slowly too.
Of my Xbox games that are "compatible" with X360 (about 1/4 of them, slightly less than the official list percentage), a fair number of those run unacceptably slow.
Some of these I can't play any more as I no longer own the game or the hardware or both, but I have fond memories of all. I've limited myself to titles released before Jan 1 2000 in order to stay with the "oldies" theme:
TRS-80 Outhouse TRS-80 Defender TRS-80 Blasteroids (a freeware game I wrote in BASIC) TRS-80 Escape From Death Star (another I wrote) TRS-80 Night of the Living Dead (yet another I wrote) Amiga Turrican Amiga Frontier Elite II Amiga F/A-18 Interceptor Amiga F-16 Combat Pilot Amiga Blood Money Amiga Lemmings Amiga Wing Commander DOS Duke Nukem 3D DOS Dark Forces DOS Tomb Raider Windows Aliens vs. Predator 1 Windows X-Wing Windows TIE Fighter Windows Half-Life Windows Jedi Knight PS1 WipEout
Are you sure the game with the awful menus wasn't Gran Turismo 4? It really did have a terrible main menu.
GT1 and GT2 had the same problem, and then they got it right in GT3. GT4 is definitely a step backwards. They forgot that everything that's not actual gameplay (i.e. driving) needs to be as simple, straightforward and streamlined as possible so you can zip through it and get to your next race.
This is just another variation on Searle's Chinese Room argument. Like that one, it suffers from the fallacy of composition.
So an electrical impulse mediated by wires and doped silicon is a "symbol", and an electrical impulse mediated by calcium ions and water has "semantics"?
"We have no plans" is corporate weasel wording for, "We're probably going to do that, but we don't want to announce it now and lose face or have to argue with someone about it."
"We have absolutely no plans" means, "Heck yeah, we're gonna do that as soon as you forget that we promised not to."
After all, not having a plan to do something is very far from having a plan to not do something. The proper journalistic response to such an announcement is, "So, you don't have any plans yet. When do you expect to have some? Or are you just going to wing it?"
Slashdot Mirror
It wasn't the six panels that was ridiculous, it was the additional peripheral the hacker had to deal with during his job interview.
Even though the Xbox itself is not manufactured any more, and as a result is becoming harder and harder to come by, the parts can still be had. I started getting DREs a lot, so I replaced my Xbox DVD-ROM drive with one from an aftermarket distributor who specializes in such things (not Lik-Sang, though I will miss them).
As a result, I don't get DREs any more, games load faster, and burned media works in the drive. I sometimes play my home video work on the Xbox, and while driving in Forza Motorsport I like to use as background freeware techno music I've downloaded from artists' sites (like Cold Storage, Imperial Project, Andreas Viklund, and Atypus).
It costs a bit (around $100 with S/H), but at least it's available.
Come to think of it, let me add Halo and Halo 2 - there are references, allusions and similarities to the Greek and Persian wars, to Norse mythology, to medieval history, and to Judeo/Christian themes and ideas. One of the main characters, an AI named Cortana who is ostensibly the protagonist's ally, is hinted to have her own agenda which may not match that of the government that created her.
Even some of the enemy characters are intelligent and complex, from the disgraced fleet commander seeking redemption through suicidal service and eventually coming to mistrust his masters, to the Prophets that rule the Covenant - Regret, who never does, Mercy, who has none, and Truth, who tells none.
Ico (short, tightly plotted storyline, makes some people cry)
Shadow of the Colossus (ditto)
Silent Hill 2 (head-scratcher)
Phil, is that you?
Great! Now we can apply the Trans-Linear Vector Principle! And the fuel is so... fitting.
The Windows 95 version of TIE Fighter works with USB joysticks. The full title is Star Wars TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM.
Expansion packs, while taking advantage of the base game assets and engine, generally offer a self-contained story.
Something episodic makes no attempt to be self-contained; you want to find out how the story ends, you'll need the succeeding episodes.
Dan
You mean Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines?
(ducks to avoid flying rotten vegetables)
Even the way the previous comment was phrased leaves loads of wiggle room.
"It won't be copy-protected to a single system". Well, it's not copy protection that's being contemplated here, so that doesn't make them liars if they nodelock.
"Any PS3 game will be playable on any PS3 system." Again, this would be true even if they nodelocked it. A nodelocking game disk will play on any system you put it in...once. And if you take "game" to mean "title" rather than "disk", it says even less; it only says that PS3 systems will play PS3 games.
And we all know that "We have no plans to do that" is bureaucracy-speak for "We're working feverishly on our plans for doing that but haven't finished those plans yet. But when we do have plans, we'll do that thing as quick as we can." The statement they made was even weaker than "We have no plans." It's "We don't know about any plans."
In other words, their denial is a non-denial that actually communicates no information, besides "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know *nothing*!", or at best, "I never said *that*!"
Here's a list of my games on the compatibility list, and which ones have emulation problems. Even the ones marked as "no problem" may have slight hesitations during full-motion video playback. Also, I haven't finished any of these on the 360 so there may be additional problems (glitches, etc) that I haven't encountered yet.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 No problems Battlestar Galactica No problems Call of Cthulhu Intro video won't play Crimson Skies No problems Darkwatch No problems Fable Minor framerate choppiness and minor rendering issues Forza Motorsport Major game speed inconsistencies - frequent and prolonged slowdowns. Unplayable. Ghost Recon No problems Ghost Recon 2 No problems Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike No problems Grand Theft Auto 3 No problems Grand Theft Auto Vice City No problems Grand Theft Auto San Andreas No problems Half-Life 2 Occasional minor hitches Halo No problems. Actually looks better on the 360. Halo 2 No problems. Actually looks better on the 360. Jade Empire No problems Medal of Honor European Assault No problems Rainbox Six 3 Black Arrow No problems Sega GT 2002 Major gamespeed inconsistencies. Game speed averages 2.5x slower than normal. Unplayable. Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow No problems Splinter Cell Chaos Theory No problems Star Wars Jedi Starfighter No problems Knights of the old Republic II The Sith Lords Sound glitches during menus and tutorial help Stubbs the Zombie No problems. Actually looks better on the 360.It's not a troll.
Careful there. Some of the titles on the compatibility list are basically unplayable.
Case in point: Sega GT 2002. The game runs at less than half-speed. And that's not just framerate, the game clock runs at less than half-speed, and everything responds slowly too.
Of my Xbox games that are "compatible" with X360 (about 1/4 of them, slightly less than the official list percentage), a fair number of those run unacceptably slow.
Some of these I can't play any more as I no longer own the game or the hardware or both, but I have fond memories of all. I've limited myself to titles released before Jan 1 2000 in order to stay with the "oldies" theme:
TRS-80 Outhouse
TRS-80 Defender
TRS-80 Blasteroids (a freeware game I wrote in BASIC)
TRS-80 Escape From Death Star (another I wrote)
TRS-80 Night of the Living Dead (yet another I wrote)
Amiga Turrican
Amiga Frontier Elite II
Amiga F/A-18 Interceptor
Amiga F-16 Combat Pilot
Amiga Blood Money
Amiga Lemmings
Amiga Wing Commander
DOS Duke Nukem 3D
DOS Dark Forces
DOS Tomb Raider
Windows Aliens vs. Predator 1
Windows X-Wing
Windows TIE Fighter
Windows Half-Life
Windows Jedi Knight
PS1 WipEout
I still play some of these.
"Impossible" is a good word. He probably means what he said.
If, on the other hand, he'd said, "We have no plans," then we'd know to prepare ourselves for yet more Boll-puckey.
$15 from Walmart.com. New.
First thing I do when I have verified that the game installs and works, is to take a CD-safe marker and write the key on the disk where it belongs.
If the label is too dark to write on, I write it in the area around the hub hole.
Are you sure the game with the awful menus wasn't Gran Turismo 4? It really did have a terrible main menu.
GT1 and GT2 had the same problem, and then they got it right in GT3. GT4 is definitely a step backwards. They forgot that everything that's not actual gameplay (i.e. driving) needs to be as simple, straightforward and streamlined as possible so you can zip through it and get to your next race.
Sadly, no.
This is just another variation on Searle's Chinese Room argument. Like that one, it suffers from the fallacy of composition.
So an electrical impulse mediated by wires and doped silicon is a "symbol", and an electrical impulse mediated by calcium ions and water has "semantics"?
Sounds like prejudice to me.
"We have no plans" is corporate weasel wording for, "We're probably going to do that, but we don't want to announce it now and lose face or have to argue with someone about it."
"We have absolutely no plans" means, "Heck yeah, we're gonna do that as soon as you forget that we promised not to."
After all, not having a plan to do something is very far from having a plan to not do something. The proper journalistic response to such an announcement is, "So, you don't have any plans yet. When do you expect to have some? Or are you just going to wing it?"
Well, not for PS2, but there's something akin to that for online PC:
EVE Online
http://www.eve-online.com/
You are so right. Sequels are always bad and a sign that all the creativity is gone.
Homer should have stopped after The Iliad. The Odyssey was just a tired hack of Greek mythology written to make money.
There are violas in DDR Extreme? Wow, I didn't know they'd gone classical. Sign me up!
Guildlines? Which guild do I have to join in order to see movies? I hope it's not one of those PvP ones...
FF2 was completed and released along with FF1 as "Final Fantasy Origins" for PS1.
The only one that I believe has never had an official US translation and release is FF3.