I do not love all my children equally... I also have seen the profound positive effect this game has had on my children.
What children are we talking about here? Children-as-product, or children-as-kids? The confused nouns in Paragraph 1 indicate his tone and mood for the entire misguided letter.
Thanks for keeping the discussion upbeat, dickhead.
Unlocking features by buying new hardware addons just SCREAMS marketing. Oh, and the last one is just a newer version of the Super Game Boy for SNES.
First of all, marketing is what we're talking about. It happens to be how companies make money. Microsoft isn't playing at marketing with Halo 2.5? Sony doesn't market their HDD when you attempt to play Resident Evil Outbreak and find that it sucks?
The games I brought up, Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles did not unlock additional content... the GBA/Cube connection was a major part of the game design. You're thinking of connection bonuses, like unlocking original Metroid when you hook up Prime and Fusion... but that's always been a half-empty/half-full problem. You're seeing a dirty ploy to get you to buy both a GBA and a Cube. I'm seeing a nice bonus for those who already have them. Although original Metroid is pretty lousy.
I was also thinking of Mario Party-e, an actual card game (you know, with paper cards) that uses the eReader and a GBA for quickie minigames.
Forgot about the Super Game Boy, though. Point for you there.
Bongos. Did you read what I wrote? Of course it's a gimmick. So was the analog stick, once upon a time. I'm not saying that every next-gen console is coming with built-in bongos... but it's still something different that Nintendo threw out there when nobody expected it. Innovation. And you know, if every gamer on the planet bought it, we definitely would have built-in bongos on the next round of systems.
With voice input and touch screen I was thinking of the DS, actually. Probably should have either specifically said the DS, or pointed out how the DS uses both in new ways, like blowing out candles and vomiting goldfish and whatnot. So your stance would be that if Company B improves upon what Company A did ten years ago, that's no longer innovating? You're not going to see a lot of innovation in your life that way. Is the Xbox hard drive innovative? I'm repeatedly told that it is.
And anyway, Nintendo had a mic input on the Famicom.
Wavebird. Wireless controllers were a joke for years... the sort of thing nobody expected to work since they sucked for so long. Then Nintendo did it right. And despite losing the rumble feedback (was that also a Nintendo innovation?), the Wavebird has become one of the singular best features of the Gamecube. Taking something that was a common joke among old time gamers and making it absolutely essential is awful damn close to innovation.
And I'm calling Pikmin the RTS/puzzle combo. I'm sure I ripped that out of a review somewhere.
All companies have tossed their share of innovations into the ring, and Nintendo more than anyone over the course of their history. Their greatest modern failing is the lack of online games, which affects them more in the court of public opinion than anywhere else (and even that is only in the hardcore gamer's court of public opinion, not families, non-gamers or occasional gamers.) If this whole discussion is going to degrade into a semantic fight over "gimmick" versus "innovation," then it's already a waste. A gimmick is simply an innovation that doesn't procreate.
You're confusing "games that I don't like" with "games that don't innovate." Nintendo has personally brought us:
- a game that takes place in real time whether you're playing or not
- games that use GBAs as additional screens
- a card game that uses a GBA for scannable minigames
- a peripheral for playing GBA games on your TV
- a genre-busting combination of puzzle and RTS
- bongos, for both a rhythm game and a platformer
- voice input
- touch screen
- a game based around 100s of 3 second minigames
- first party wireless controllers
And those are all recent ones. Just because not all of these items were a huge success and thus repeated many times over, that does not mean they weren't innovations. The whims of the marketplace turn gimmicks into innovations... and I'll back the guys resposible for the d-pad, analog sticks, and portable gaming as we know it. I'll give them a couple floppy gimmicks (R.O.B.) in order to score the bigger hits (wireless controllers that don't suck).
And for the record, I hated the no-FLUDD levels in Sunshine.
This article was posted to IGN Cube back in October, as shared content between IGN and N-Sider. Same graphics as well. Old article, even older complaints. Nice job, story submitter.
For every decent point, the author trots out the same Mario-bashing that has following Nintendo since the SNES. The author shows a complete misunderstanding of how businesses maintain corporate identity and branding when he launches into such brilliant ideas as suggesting Donkey Konga would have been better served with brand new characters instead of recycling Donkey Kong. Because we all know how the PS2's Taiko Drum Master is burning up the charts (another drum peripheral game, nearly identical to Konga, also developed by Namco) because people are just begging for new drum games featuring all new IP. Come on. Half of those dreaded Mario spin-off games are concepts that nobody knew would become huge, and Nintendo figured that attaching Mario to them was the surest way to help their success. Risk = lousy games would diminish the brand, Reward = good games that strengthen the brand. Was there a huge appetite for cart racers before Mario Kart? For party games before Mario Party? For silly golf games before Mario Golf? Nintendo ventured out (Donkey Konga is a risk... new bulky hardware for a genre that mostly runs off one game, DDR), made some sharp games, people lapped them up... so Nintendo realized they hit gold and made more. And then everybody started doing them, and whaddaya know, they mostly paled in comparison.
You can write the same article about PlayStation, switching in Metal Gear, Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto. The major differences are A) that Nintendo has been around longer - and thus has been doing the branding game longer. And B) that Nintendo's core franchises are family-friendly and thus open to constant ridicule by those who don't like them.
First, thanks for keeping the discussion cool, unlike farthammer AC back there.
every console up till the Xbox have all been the same, only extending the graphics of the games.
That's not an accurate statement. Every generation has added new features to the ring, and just about every console has thrown in their own specialties that were later adopted by other companies. Analog sticks, shoulder buttons, wireless controllers, rumble feedback, memory cards, CD/DVD storage, voice input, camera input... all of these (and more) have popped up over the course of video game console development. To say that everything prior to Xbox has been the same (except for graphics) is nonsense and reeks of fanboyism.
Microsoft actually has it right, because they see the short comings of nintendo and sony.
How about increasing the caliber and size of the Xbox library? That's what they need to concentrate on... Halo and Xbox Live have totally supported them in this generation (and Live is primarily only a marketing bullet point, since most Xbox owners don't even use it.) How much longer? That's Microsoft's shortcoming, not Nintendo's or Sony's. Neither Nintendo nor Sony has to respond to that, in the way that Sony is responding to Microsoft by simply making an HD available and getting their games online. The Xbox has a handful of AAA titles amid overwhelming mediocrity. It's feast or famine, and mostly famine.
Oh and about his "Popular Opinion" of Mario games.
That was my initial point. Everybody (particularly the "mature" Xbox/PC crowd) goes to great lengths to slam Nintendo for all the Mario titles and all the re-released old Mario titles with minor enhancements. And now the Xbox's critical darling Halo is doing the same thing. Why? Because it will sell. Why does it sell? Because people want it. Why does Nintendo do the same thing - even while continually producing brand new titles and directions for the franchise - they do the same thing for the same reason. I realize that 50 is quite a bit more games than 2, but Nintendo has been around longer, and has 20 years of nostalgia to take advantage of. I was preparing to laugh outwardly at all the Xbox fans who are already drooling over Halo 2.5, yet scoffed at Mario Advance/SMB3, Mario Party X, etc.
Seriously though, the Mario Party series is damn good stuff.
Thanks for your thoughts, AC. As usual, you're a dick.
GTA San Andreas has 2P modes, so it is at the least viable for a couple players in that regard. Also, it's fun to play one guy's game, then switch over to your game to show off how they're different, what you've collected, whatever. Moreover, it can actually be fun to simply watch somebody else play a game. I chose GTA as the example over fighting or sports because I've actually done that, shithead.
What about KOTOR, which has save files that are too big to transfer to the memory card anyway. I don't know how many other games are affected like that (if any), but that's a pretty big example of somebody not paying attention.
How many games actually used the personal soundtrack feature? Not every damn one, I can tell you that. Cute feature in isolated instances, but hardly a dealmaker.
Downloading new content is cool, I'll say that. Saving without memory cards is nice, assuming you retain the option to carry your info around with you in some fashion (through online login in the future maybe?) Having your network settings inside the box instead of on some random PS2 card somewhere is great. Having data load from the drive faster than from the disc is great too. I just named more advantages than you could. I never said they were useless, just that they're not especially revolutionary and not a "huge advantage." Just a nice feature... it remains to be seen if every other company will jump on it.
But by all means, rag on Mario Party. How "Popular Opinion" of you. Fuckwad.
And Microsoft is smart. This time, they're making people pay extra for a HD. Why, because it's that good. And they can make money from consumers upgrading, a market they simply didn't envision originally.
That's genius. Nice to hear you're such a good little soldier with your finger on the pulse of Microsoft's marketing and business practices. Go shoot someone now while listening to your stolen Eminem collection. Get that wallet ready to buy your One Game again on your brand new dedicated Halo2.5/3 system. Asshat.
Absolutely. They can switch over to doing strips about cross stitch. But they gained their fame and their livelihoods doing comics about games. I think it's safe to assume that's what people wanted. Maybe times change and now people want them to do strips about the Cardboard Tube In-Joke Samurai or American Magee's Cthulu Christmas... but I don't think that's the case.
They can exercise their creative rights all they like, but I say it's going to work against them if they keep doing it all the damn time. People stop visiting their site, their strips stop getting press on gaming sites and mags, advertising rates drops, and then all of a sudden they have to get jobs in retail. Penny Arcade becomes "that site that used to be about video games." Just like PvP before Kurtz got old and resorted to doing gags from a high school newspaper comic.
Were I their handler - and obviously I'm not - I would suggest they do this sort of stuff as a sidebar and post it secondary to the main strip of the day. (Which should be on the first page, for smeg's sake.) Go ahead and do whatever you boys like, just don't let it get in the way of daily business. I may not pay them directly, but my continued pagehits maintain their advertisers' satisfaction.
I wish I could shluff off my job for a week when I'm visiting relatives for the holidays too.
If the industry would focus a little more on simplifying the PC gaming experience through better-designed automatic configuration, easier and less intrusive copy protection, and scheduling more time for quality assurance testing to get the bugs worked out, the PC might become a competitive platform again.
But they did... they all switched to consoles! If you recognize this as a major flaw in PC games, why are you holding out for them to fix it. Just for better graphics? It sounds like you're holding on to Windows for the sole reason being just to hold on to Windows. Let it go. They failed to make the PC easy to use in the face of the alternatives; you don't have to back them any longer!
The Xbox, although a microsoft product, has changed console systems in that it was the first to have a hard drive
Yeah, but what has it done for me lately? Not having to buy memory cards is great, but I know that if I'm going to a friend's house, I can bring along my mem card and play my personal GTA game using his PS2 and his copy of the game. Can you do that with a hard drive? Only if it's removable, I suppose.
I'm just not buying that the Xbox hard drive is revolutionizing gaming... and I don't think Microsoft is either, since they're toying with releasing an Xbox2 model that doesn't even have one. (Terrible idea, by the way. How are game developers supposed to make full-featured Xbox games when they can't even be assured which Xbox consumers will own?)
Others have pointed this out, but the problem with the Xbox is that Halo is it, more or less. Without Halo, Xbox would never have survived. So of course bundling a Halo 2.5 makes business sense, but doesn't it also seem a little bit sad? I mean, Halo is it, fin, nothing else. They don't even have Halo Tennis, Halo Kart, Halo Party, or any sub-franchises to pimp.
My bigger point was that Halo fans are going to gush over this, even though nearly everyone has spent the last three years ripping apart Nintendo for all those Super Mario Advance re-releases. (Especially SMB3 with eReader support, where the typical angry quote was "they're holding back content unless I buy an eReader to unlock it!") Well, now Halo is pulling a similar trick. Buy Halo 2 now, buy the slightly upgraded Halo 2 port later.
The PC gaming industry "killed" itself (your words, not mine) when games became a pain in the ass to play. Thanks to non-standard hardware, option menus you have to be hardcore to understand (remember having to edit your BIOS?), requiring patches and bugfixes on a regular basis, and throwing it all on a platform that is susceptible to total disarray due to viruses, spyware, and the overall crappiness of Windows. I remember the nightmare of getting Dungeon Keeper 2 multiplayer up, and thinking "There has got to be a better way." On consoles, even the lousy games tend to work correctly rather than not at all.
This has got to be an Xbox2 launch title, which Microsoft knows is the only game they've got that stands a chance of selling system. Halo 3 must be taking too long, so a panicked Board has Bungie re-doing #2. I eagerly await Xboxers falling all over themselves to get this while simultaneously bashing Nintendo for the latest re-release of Super Mario Whatever. Irony.
There is no difference in hardware between GBA and GBA SP, AFAIK. So this add-on should work on original GBAs as well... you'll just have to sit near a lamp to see it.
More than likely, the article references GBA SP because that's the only version currently in production and still sells like crazy.
Yeah, unfortunate timing, since they're into a continuity series that has little to do with video games. Then again, this happens quite a bit - see the line-dancing series, the golf series, etc. PA Wish List: More strips about games, and put the current comic right on the freaking main page.
Will I be immediately modded down if I suggest that the Cardboard Tube Samarai is an overblown unfunny self-indulgent in-joke that reveals the lads as high on their own celebrity?
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Average mod score: 1.3333
Headshots: 0
Sex budget: $0.00
I play in the living room because it's comfortable there. Or because somebody else is watching TV, so I can't play Gamecube or PS2. When you're into a good portable game, you play it everywhere, even if there's another gaming option available. It sounds like you're assuming that handheld games are worse than console games.
That said, I have no interest in plugging it into a wall for power. Because I will change rooms, visit the bathroom, go outside, pile in the car for a trip... all without interrupting my GBASP game.
4-6 hours is probably fine... it won't hamper your gaming much as long as you remember to recharge it. That's the real pain in the ass here. Serious PSP gamers will likely have to hit a pattern of recharging similar to cell phones.
Yeah, but the Nintendo logo is all over box, including the famous Nintendo Seal of Quality, showing their implicit consent of the game. "published under the Nintendo banner" doesn't necessarily mean "published by Nintendo." I think the author was just making a point that Nintendo approved that game for creation and distribution on Nintendo hardware. I don't call that a factual error.
This isn't like the days of those un-approved Tengen NES carts, where Nintendo definitely did not approve the publication of those games.
Re:Do people care about PC games anymore?
on
The Sims 2 For Mac
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I agree entirely, but you are about to be destroyed by the pro-PC crowd in a massive flamewar.
Or, you would be if they hadn't seen the Mac-centric headline and bailed!
And you have to have respect for other faiths. Respect that you did not show in your parent post, which directly states that Christianity is the only option.
It's not. Please go dredge for new converts somewhere else.
And for a revelatory look (pun intended) at the bible, please see skepticsannotatedbible.com. You should probably take a lok at that site and actually investigate some of the crazy crap in the bible, instead of just feeling good with your glossed-over Daily Inspirational Calendar.
Slashdot Mirror
What children are we talking about here? Children-as-product, or children-as-kids? The confused nouns in Paragraph 1 indicate his tone and mood for the entire misguided letter.
Plus, points off for mentioning "God." Twice.
You know, launching discs, scraping buttons, and crappy battery aside... the PSP just scored a killer app.
Unlocking features by buying new hardware addons just SCREAMS marketing. Oh, and the last one is just a newer version of the Super Game Boy for SNES.
First of all, marketing is what we're talking about. It happens to be how companies make money. Microsoft isn't playing at marketing with Halo 2.5? Sony doesn't market their HDD when you attempt to play Resident Evil Outbreak and find that it sucks?
The games I brought up, Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles did not unlock additional content... the GBA/Cube connection was a major part of the game design. You're thinking of connection bonuses, like unlocking original Metroid when you hook up Prime and Fusion... but that's always been a half-empty/half-full problem. You're seeing a dirty ploy to get you to buy both a GBA and a Cube. I'm seeing a nice bonus for those who already have them. Although original Metroid is pretty lousy.
I was also thinking of Mario Party-e, an actual card game (you know, with paper cards) that uses the eReader and a GBA for quickie minigames.
Forgot about the Super Game Boy, though. Point for you there.
Bongos. Did you read what I wrote? Of course it's a gimmick. So was the analog stick, once upon a time. I'm not saying that every next-gen console is coming with built-in bongos... but it's still something different that Nintendo threw out there when nobody expected it. Innovation. And you know, if every gamer on the planet bought it, we definitely would have built-in bongos on the next round of systems.
With voice input and touch screen I was thinking of the DS, actually. Probably should have either specifically said the DS, or pointed out how the DS uses both in new ways, like blowing out candles and vomiting goldfish and whatnot. So your stance would be that if Company B improves upon what Company A did ten years ago, that's no longer innovating? You're not going to see a lot of innovation in your life that way. Is the Xbox hard drive innovative? I'm repeatedly told that it is.
And anyway, Nintendo had a mic input on the Famicom.
Wavebird. Wireless controllers were a joke for years... the sort of thing nobody expected to work since they sucked for so long. Then Nintendo did it right. And despite losing the rumble feedback (was that also a Nintendo innovation?), the Wavebird has become one of the singular best features of the Gamecube. Taking something that was a common joke among old time gamers and making it absolutely essential is awful damn close to innovation.
And I'm calling Pikmin the RTS/puzzle combo. I'm sure I ripped that out of a review somewhere.
All companies have tossed their share of innovations into the ring, and Nintendo more than anyone over the course of their history. Their greatest modern failing is the lack of online games, which affects them more in the court of public opinion than anywhere else (and even that is only in the hardcore gamer's court of public opinion, not families, non-gamers or occasional gamers.) If this whole discussion is going to degrade into a semantic fight over "gimmick" versus "innovation," then it's already a waste. A gimmick is simply an innovation that doesn't procreate.
You're confusing "games that I don't like" with "games that don't innovate." Nintendo has personally brought us:
- a game that takes place in real time whether you're playing or not
- games that use GBAs as additional screens
- a card game that uses a GBA for scannable minigames
- a peripheral for playing GBA games on your TV
- a genre-busting combination of puzzle and RTS
- bongos, for both a rhythm game and a platformer
- voice input
- touch screen
- a game based around 100s of 3 second minigames
- first party wireless controllers
And those are all recent ones. Just because not all of these items were a huge success and thus repeated many times over, that does not mean they weren't innovations. The whims of the marketplace turn gimmicks into innovations... and I'll back the guys resposible for the d-pad, analog sticks, and portable gaming as we know it. I'll give them a couple floppy gimmicks (R.O.B.) in order to score the bigger hits (wireless controllers that don't suck).
And for the record, I hated the no-FLUDD levels in Sunshine.
For every decent point, the author trots out the same Mario-bashing that has following Nintendo since the SNES. The author shows a complete misunderstanding of how businesses maintain corporate identity and branding when he launches into such brilliant ideas as suggesting Donkey Konga would have been better served with brand new characters instead of recycling Donkey Kong. Because we all know how the PS2's Taiko Drum Master is burning up the charts (another drum peripheral game, nearly identical to Konga, also developed by Namco) because people are just begging for new drum games featuring all new IP. Come on. Half of those dreaded Mario spin-off games are concepts that nobody knew would become huge, and Nintendo figured that attaching Mario to them was the surest way to help their success. Risk = lousy games would diminish the brand, Reward = good games that strengthen the brand. Was there a huge appetite for cart racers before Mario Kart? For party games before Mario Party? For silly golf games before Mario Golf? Nintendo ventured out (Donkey Konga is a risk... new bulky hardware for a genre that mostly runs off one game, DDR), made some sharp games, people lapped them up... so Nintendo realized they hit gold and made more. And then everybody started doing them, and whaddaya know, they mostly paled in comparison.
You can write the same article about PlayStation, switching in Metal Gear, Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto. The major differences are A) that Nintendo has been around longer - and thus has been doing the branding game longer. And B) that Nintendo's core franchises are family-friendly and thus open to constant ridicule by those who don't like them.
every console up till the Xbox have all been the same, only extending the graphics of the games.
That's not an accurate statement. Every generation has added new features to the ring, and just about every console has thrown in their own specialties that were later adopted by other companies. Analog sticks, shoulder buttons, wireless controllers, rumble feedback, memory cards, CD/DVD storage, voice input, camera input... all of these (and more) have popped up over the course of video game console development. To say that everything prior to Xbox has been the same (except for graphics) is nonsense and reeks of fanboyism.
Microsoft actually has it right, because they see the short comings of nintendo and sony.
How about increasing the caliber and size of the Xbox library? That's what they need to concentrate on... Halo and Xbox Live have totally supported them in this generation (and Live is primarily only a marketing bullet point, since most Xbox owners don't even use it.) How much longer? That's Microsoft's shortcoming, not Nintendo's or Sony's. Neither Nintendo nor Sony has to respond to that, in the way that Sony is responding to Microsoft by simply making an HD available and getting their games online. The Xbox has a handful of AAA titles amid overwhelming mediocrity. It's feast or famine, and mostly famine.
Oh and about his "Popular Opinion" of Mario games.
That was my initial point. Everybody (particularly the "mature" Xbox/PC crowd) goes to great lengths to slam Nintendo for all the Mario titles and all the re-released old Mario titles with minor enhancements. And now the Xbox's critical darling Halo is doing the same thing. Why? Because it will sell. Why does it sell? Because people want it. Why does Nintendo do the same thing - even while continually producing brand new titles and directions for the franchise - they do the same thing for the same reason. I realize that 50 is quite a bit more games than 2, but Nintendo has been around longer, and has 20 years of nostalgia to take advantage of. I was preparing to laugh outwardly at all the Xbox fans who are already drooling over Halo 2.5, yet scoffed at Mario Advance/SMB3, Mario Party X, etc.
Seriously though, the Mario Party series is damn good stuff.
GTA San Andreas has 2P modes, so it is at the least viable for a couple players in that regard. Also, it's fun to play one guy's game, then switch over to your game to show off how they're different, what you've collected, whatever. Moreover, it can actually be fun to simply watch somebody else play a game. I chose GTA as the example over fighting or sports because I've actually done that, shithead.
What about KOTOR, which has save files that are too big to transfer to the memory card anyway. I don't know how many other games are affected like that (if any), but that's a pretty big example of somebody not paying attention.
How many games actually used the personal soundtrack feature? Not every damn one, I can tell you that. Cute feature in isolated instances, but hardly a dealmaker.
Downloading new content is cool, I'll say that. Saving without memory cards is nice, assuming you retain the option to carry your info around with you in some fashion (through online login in the future maybe?) Having your network settings inside the box instead of on some random PS2 card somewhere is great. Having data load from the drive faster than from the disc is great too. I just named more advantages than you could. I never said they were useless, just that they're not especially revolutionary and not a "huge advantage." Just a nice feature... it remains to be seen if every other company will jump on it.
But by all means, rag on Mario Party. How "Popular Opinion" of you. Fuckwad.
And Microsoft is smart. This time, they're making people pay extra for a HD. Why, because it's that good. And they can make money from consumers upgrading, a market they simply didn't envision originally.
That's genius. Nice to hear you're such a good little soldier with your finger on the pulse of Microsoft's marketing and business practices. Go shoot someone now while listening to your stolen Eminem collection. Get that wallet ready to buy your One Game again on your brand new dedicated Halo2.5/3 system. Asshat.
They can exercise their creative rights all they like, but I say it's going to work against them if they keep doing it all the damn time. People stop visiting their site, their strips stop getting press on gaming sites and mags, advertising rates drops, and then all of a sudden they have to get jobs in retail. Penny Arcade becomes "that site that used to be about video games." Just like PvP before Kurtz got old and resorted to doing gags from a high school newspaper comic.
Were I their handler - and obviously I'm not - I would suggest they do this sort of stuff as a sidebar and post it secondary to the main strip of the day. (Which should be on the first page, for smeg's sake.) Go ahead and do whatever you boys like, just don't let it get in the way of daily business. I may not pay them directly, but my continued pagehits maintain their advertisers' satisfaction.
I wish I could shluff off my job for a week when I'm visiting relatives for the holidays too.
But they did... they all switched to consoles! If you recognize this as a major flaw in PC games, why are you holding out for them to fix it. Just for better graphics? It sounds like you're holding on to Windows for the sole reason being just to hold on to Windows. Let it go. They failed to make the PC easy to use in the face of the alternatives; you don't have to back them any longer!
Yeah, but what has it done for me lately? Not having to buy memory cards is great, but I know that if I'm going to a friend's house, I can bring along my mem card and play my personal GTA game using his PS2 and his copy of the game. Can you do that with a hard drive? Only if it's removable, I suppose.
I'm just not buying that the Xbox hard drive is revolutionizing gaming... and I don't think Microsoft is either, since they're toying with releasing an Xbox2 model that doesn't even have one. (Terrible idea, by the way. How are game developers supposed to make full-featured Xbox games when they can't even be assured which Xbox consumers will own?)
Others have pointed this out, but the problem with the Xbox is that Halo is it, more or less. Without Halo, Xbox would never have survived. So of course bundling a Halo 2.5 makes business sense, but doesn't it also seem a little bit sad? I mean, Halo is it, fin, nothing else. They don't even have Halo Tennis, Halo Kart, Halo Party, or any sub-franchises to pimp.
My bigger point was that Halo fans are going to gush over this, even though nearly everyone has spent the last three years ripping apart Nintendo for all those Super Mario Advance re-releases. (Especially SMB3 with eReader support, where the typical angry quote was "they're holding back content unless I buy an eReader to unlock it!") Well, now Halo is pulling a similar trick. Buy Halo 2 now, buy the slightly upgraded Halo 2 port later.
Regardless, another self-indulgent mediocre offering that continues to get in the way of Gabe and Tycho talking about video games, per their mandate.
The PC gaming industry "killed" itself (your words, not mine) when games became a pain in the ass to play. Thanks to non-standard hardware, option menus you have to be hardcore to understand (remember having to edit your BIOS?), requiring patches and bugfixes on a regular basis, and throwing it all on a platform that is susceptible to total disarray due to viruses, spyware, and the overall crappiness of Windows. I remember the nightmare of getting Dungeon Keeper 2 multiplayer up, and thinking "There has got to be a better way." On consoles, even the lousy games tend to work correctly rather than not at all.
This has got to be an Xbox2 launch title, which Microsoft knows is the only game they've got that stands a chance of selling system. Halo 3 must be taking too long, so a panicked Board has Bungie re-doing #2. I eagerly await Xboxers falling all over themselves to get this while simultaneously bashing Nintendo for the latest re-release of Super Mario Whatever. Irony.
Thank you! That was my point, but Xbox AC Fanboy #28371 missed it.
JANUARY
Another WWII shooter! It's online and has dual weapons!
A sports game!
A PS2 port!
FEBRUARY
Another Vietnam shooter! It's online and has dual weapons!
A US-developed RPG that fails to live up to expectations!
A PS2 port!
MARCH
Another Sci-Fi shooter! It's online and has dual weapons!
Another sports game!
A PS2 port!
APRIL
Another Vietnam shooter, because the kids love them! It's online and has dual weapons!
A whole bunch of PS2 ports!
Anybody can play this game, jerk.
More than likely, the article references GBA SP because that's the only version currently in production and still sells like crazy.
Will I be immediately modded down if I suggest that the Cardboard Tube Samarai is an overblown unfunny self-indulgent in-joke that reveals the lads as high on their own celebrity?
For stats: 6
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Position undeterminable due to crappy and/or confusing comment: 4
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Total comments: 21
Most comments by: Anonymous Coward
Average mod score: 1.3333
Headshots: 0
Sex budget: $0.00
The hell they will! We're not being sold on the PSP by puzzle games and 2D fighters. We're being sold with Gran Turismo.
Your laptop has pretty lousy power issues for gaming. I don't think the general public will be as forgiving with a brand new, mega-hyped Sony product.
"Bathroom humor. Nice. Do you know any funny stuff about farts?" - Master Lui, Sealab 2021
That said, I have no interest in plugging it into a wall for power. Because I will change rooms, visit the bathroom, go outside, pile in the car for a trip... all without interrupting my GBASP game.
4-6 hours is probably fine... it won't hamper your gaming much as long as you remember to recharge it. That's the real pain in the ass here. Serious PSP gamers will likely have to hit a pattern of recharging similar to cell phones.
This isn't like the days of those un-approved Tengen NES carts, where Nintendo definitely did not approve the publication of those games.
Or, you would be if they hadn't seen the Mac-centric headline and bailed!
It's not. Please go dredge for new converts somewhere else.
And for a revelatory look (pun intended) at the bible, please see skepticsannotatedbible.com. You should probably take a lok at that site and actually investigate some of the crazy crap in the bible, instead of just feeling good with your glossed-over Daily Inspirational Calendar.
Special thanks to Janet Jackson's tit for taking the heat off of us for a while.