Unfortunately, he's not on the character list for this go-round.
Then again, I do recall seeing screenshots of two different Koopa Troopas (a regular one and a red-shelled Paratroopa) in other writeups, and there's only one Koopa on the list for this game. Seeing as the games have never allowed two people to choose the same character, methinks the character list is incomplete...
As soon as I can race as Lakitu, I'll be in geek heaven...
So far, the backlash against the N-Gage has not been a pretty thing. On most of the video game sites I frequent, the N-Gage has been written off as a failure. Seeing as most people haven't seen it in action yet, that's not a good thing.
While it would be nice to see the N-Gage succeed (and give Nintendo some serious competition for the first time in years), I honestly don't think it will be able to. The attitudes that most of my gamer friends have about the N-Gage are set, and facing strong negativity from the start is never a good thing. Beyond that, the unit's initial price is too high for most of the people I've talked to. And the fact that you have to remove the battery to switch games or memory cards is a huge strike against it. I'd love to see the N-Gage succeed, but I believe it's been doomed to fail...much like the Dreamcast was.
If Nintendo did something along the lines of the Sega Ages program and remade some of their classic NES games for the GC or its sucessor, it'd be a huge success - and since Nintendo's remakes sell very well, we know there's demand for something like this. Wonder if they've got anything like that in the works...
As for the Sega series...I'll be happy when they get to the Sonic games and "Altered Beast."
What do you think about commercial music downloading services, such as Apple's iTunes service? Will they still be successful in five years? Are they fair to the artists and the labels? Is it really fair to restrict use of what has been legally paid for (such as only being able to listen to it on a PC or burn the file three times), as earlier services have done?
It has oftentimes been claimed by the RIAA that the sharing of MP3s online has led to a decline in CD sales. Others have claimed that the decline is due to the practice of pirating CDs or the lack of "good" music. In any case, all have agreed that sales of CDs have fallen.
In your opinion, what do you feel has caused the greatest financial impact to the music industry? If the answer is not "file sharing," then what is the industry doing to combat the problem?
One note - Advance Wars is actually a continuation of a previously Japan-only series of Game Boy games.
Unfortunately, originality on all consoles has been vanishing as of late. Publishers make the easy decision and decide to go with what's guaranteed to sell. No one really needs four different NFL games for each season or a tie-in piece of shovelware for every blockbuster movie, but that's what we're getting.
As was noted in the article, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of us, the gamers. As long as we're content with retreads of old franchises and sequel after sequel to an unexpected hit, that's what we'll receive. It would be nice to see console manufacturers award originality (maybe a price break on the media or the license fees?), but that probably won't happen. Therefore, we, the gamers, need to support originality. We need to buy the games that are different, the ones that take chances. Praising them isn't enough. More often than not, even a mediocre original game is far better than a licensed one. The problem is that we don't do that. We buy the franchises, the crappy licenses (Enter the Matrix, anyone?). We don't support originality, making it an unneeded risk for publishers.
Until we reform our buying habits, nothing is going to change.
Funny...I haven't heard any of the noteworthy third party developers (or even Acclaim, for that matter) announce any form of software support for the Phantom. Even if it does debut, it's going to die very quickly unless they manage to pull in some form of third party support.
"In that case, it won't matter if you play them from a PDA or a console."
I could be wrong, but most PDAs that I've seen aren't capable of handling any kind of MMO game with any level of success. And in any case, the wireless Internet situation is too screwed up at the moment (multiple standards, uneven cover, huge fees at some access points...) to guarantee a connection to the servers these games require.
Remember: no matter how powerful the system is or how pretty the graphics are, the games are what make the system great. If Microsoft can't pull in good games, their new console will die fairly quickly.
Let's face it: Rare's most successful titles were pioneers for their time. Donkey Kong Country was successful, in part, because of its graphics. Goldeneye was a huge hit because the FPS genre had never worked very well on consoles prior to Rare's intervention. Battletoads was one of the first games where you could play as a mutant frog. Many of Rare's games has succeeded, and not always for expected reasons.
As long as Rare's new games continue to bring new elements to gaming, they'll do just fine. If, on the other hand, Rare stagnates and starts churning out cookie-cutter sequels to once-successful franchises, Microsoft's investment will be for naught.
I don't know if this was posted online before or after the German site, but here's another aquarium case. And this one has real fish in the case (neon tetras, according to the writeup).
Watch out for Power Surges...
on
Aquarium Modcase
·
· Score: 1, Funny
For some reason, I just have this image of something going wrong, with electric current flowing through the water and frying whatever fish are in the case...
On the plus side, it would be a quick and easy way to make dinner. George Foreman, eat your heart out...
High school is hellish enough without this tracking system.
The thing is, I really don't see this making much of a difference. This isn't going to stop people from dropping out. The problem, in almost all cases, is that the students don't want to be at school and they don't give a crap what kind of life they'll live in the future. A lot of the people that I've gone to school with were planning on doing factory work, or working in a garage, or going into child care...They don't have ambition. They don't want to learn, and even if they're in the building physically, there's no way on Earth to force them to be there mentally.
All of the technology in the world won't stop dropouts.
As far as I know, it hasn't happened yet. But would it be illegal for the government to use keylogger software and other similar tactics on public terminals as part of their ongoing "must destroy all terrorists" campaign? I know that if they had a reason to do so, they would most definitely be allowed to. As the story mentions, the government used similar software to help convict a mob boss.
Still, the question remains: is it legal for the government to monitor our activities on public computers without our consent, and is there a chance it could already be happening?
Bah. I submitted this same story at about 11:00 AM earlier today, but it didn't get posted.
Eventually, someone who works for the RIAA is going to have a breakthrough: they're permanently alienating a good majority of their potential consumers. Personally, I have zero motivation to buy a CD from anyone who's a member of the RIAA. These lawsuits are frivolous - we have more than enough cases to keep the courts occupied. We don't need more lawsuits, especially not these ones.
If the music industry stops promoting overpriced CDs with two or three good songs and another half hour of crappy filler, we'll all be motivated to buy more music. The Beatles were able to make their B-Side tracks works of genius. All I'm asking for now is a CD where the entire disc is passable. I'm not paying for something that's 85% crap.
I still want my Toad, though...
Then again, I do recall seeing screenshots of two different Koopa Troopas (a regular one and a red-shelled Paratroopa) in other writeups, and there's only one Koopa on the list for this game. Seeing as the games have never allowed two people to choose the same character, methinks the character list is incomplete...
As soon as I can race as Lakitu, I'll be in geek heaven...
While it would be nice to see the N-Gage succeed (and give Nintendo some serious competition for the first time in years), I honestly don't think it will be able to. The attitudes that most of my gamer friends have about the N-Gage are set, and facing strong negativity from the start is never a good thing. Beyond that, the unit's initial price is too high for most of the people I've talked to. And the fact that you have to remove the battery to switch games or memory cards is a huge strike against it. I'd love to see the N-Gage succeed, but I believe it's been doomed to fail...much like the Dreamcast was.
As for the Sega series...I'll be happy when they get to the Sonic games and "Altered Beast."
What do you think about commercial music downloading services, such as Apple's iTunes service? Will they still be successful in five years? Are they fair to the artists and the labels? Is it really fair to restrict use of what has been legally paid for (such as only being able to listen to it on a PC or burn the file three times), as earlier services have done?
In your opinion, what do you feel has caused the greatest financial impact to the music industry? If the answer is not "file sharing," then what is the industry doing to combat the problem?
Unfortunately, originality on all consoles has been vanishing as of late. Publishers make the easy decision and decide to go with what's guaranteed to sell. No one really needs four different NFL games for each season or a tie-in piece of shovelware for every blockbuster movie, but that's what we're getting.
As was noted in the article, the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of us, the gamers. As long as we're content with retreads of old franchises and sequel after sequel to an unexpected hit, that's what we'll receive. It would be nice to see console manufacturers award originality (maybe a price break on the media or the license fees?), but that probably won't happen. Therefore, we, the gamers, need to support originality. We need to buy the games that are different, the ones that take chances. Praising them isn't enough. More often than not, even a mediocre original game is far better than a licensed one. The problem is that we don't do that. We buy the franchises, the crappy licenses (Enter the Matrix, anyone?). We don't support originality, making it an unneeded risk for publishers.
Until we reform our buying habits, nothing is going to change.
Funny...I haven't heard any of the noteworthy third party developers (or even Acclaim, for that matter) announce any form of software support for the Phantom. Even if it does debut, it's going to die very quickly unless they manage to pull in some form of third party support.
I could be wrong, but most PDAs that I've seen aren't capable of handling any kind of MMO game with any level of success. And in any case, the wireless Internet situation is too screwed up at the moment (multiple standards, uneven cover, huge fees at some access points...) to guarantee a connection to the servers these games require.
Remember: no matter how powerful the system is or how pretty the graphics are, the games are what make the system great. If Microsoft can't pull in good games, their new console will die fairly quickly.
As long as Rare's new games continue to bring new elements to gaming, they'll do just fine. If, on the other hand, Rare stagnates and starts churning out cookie-cutter sequels to once-successful franchises, Microsoft's investment will be for naught.
I don't know if this was posted online before or after the German site, but here's another aquarium case. And this one has real fish in the case (neon tetras, according to the writeup).
On the plus side, it would be a quick and easy way to make dinner. George Foreman, eat your heart out...
So...when are they going to let us play that "Decapitate the Chocobo" minigame we were promised?
High school is hellish enough without this tracking system.
The thing is, I really don't see this making much of a difference. This isn't going to stop people from dropping out. The problem, in almost all cases, is that the students don't want to be at school and they don't give a crap what kind of life they'll live in the future. A lot of the people that I've gone to school with were planning on doing factory work, or working in a garage, or going into child care...They don't have ambition. They don't want to learn, and even if they're in the building physically, there's no way on Earth to force them to be there mentally.
All of the technology in the world won't stop dropouts.
As far as I know, it hasn't happened yet. But would it be illegal for the government to use keylogger software and other similar tactics on public terminals as part of their ongoing "must destroy all terrorists" campaign? I know that if they had a reason to do so, they would most definitely be allowed to. As the story mentions, the government used similar software to help convict a mob boss.
Still, the question remains: is it legal for the government to monitor our activities on public computers without our consent, and is there a chance it could already be happening?
Eventually, someone who works for the RIAA is going to have a breakthrough: they're permanently alienating a good majority of their potential consumers. Personally, I have zero motivation to buy a CD from anyone who's a member of the RIAA. These lawsuits are frivolous - we have more than enough cases to keep the courts occupied. We don't need more lawsuits, especially not these ones.
If the music industry stops promoting overpriced CDs with two or three good songs and another half hour of crappy filler, we'll all be motivated to buy more music. The Beatles were able to make their B-Side tracks works of genius. All I'm asking for now is a CD where the entire disc is passable. I'm not paying for something that's 85% crap.