Being treated like perverts... (and for buying quake and half life no less), if being labelled as "antisocial geek" wasnt enough.
I've just wondered something: have these politicians took into consideration how would this move ultimately affect sales and then estimated the percenteage of M rated games being made in California at this day? and how much of that income comes as taxes for the state? also have they considered M rated game players actually have voting age?
According politicians and government who are trying to shove the public the idea that R rated games are "murder simulators" a M rated game is worst than a R rated movie, why? because you are causing not just watching the violence.
What these guys are not considering is that in certain movies the perspective of the hero inviting the audience to take the role of that character SO is basically the same case scenario, yet we dont see anyone accusing Rambo 2 of being a "murder simulator" why? because that argument is a lot of BS thats why.
In any case a Movie is fairly more convincing (and probably mind warping) for a person than any game out there, a 4 year old can easily recognize any scene from "medal of honor" or even "manhunt" as a videogame. But a war veteran can see a scene from "saving private ryan" or "black hawk down" and find it awfully close to his actual memories.
No offense guys but I would take this with a large chunk of salt, I mean how many times we were told the doom movie was being made (starring Arnold Shwarzenegger no less)? Metroid being made by Jhon woo? come on! april fools was 4 days ago.
If Metroid ever gets made it will be some stinker ad stunt like the Tomb Raider movie done by some guy whom latest work was a sitcom. Not John Freaking Woh the guy made MI2! (it wasnt that good but it was a very high budget movie), Besides as much as it hurts to say it, Metroid is not THAT Mainstream, is more possible they choose a franchise like Zelda (Link) Halo or (heaven help us) a Pokemon live action movie.
A great example of a bad remake is the new 3d Castlevania for ps2 a lot of people got the impression that the problem was the leap to 3d, but the actual problem was the "return to form" castlevania evolved with each title to the awarded new Castlevania:SOTN format that we got in the PSX (multiple weapons, inventories, metroid style replayable non linear levels,etc) and the gba remakes, unfortunately they ignored that and tried the same format of the original castlevania, obviously the result is something that is considered dull by today standards: one weapon, no inventory, linear levels. (The same happened to TMNT but for sanity's sake lets not go to there)
Curiously enough Ninja Gaiden ( a remake of a much simpler in form game) decided to use a format similar to SOTN (inventory, several weapons, replayable non linear levels) while keeping some of the elements that made the series famous (extreme dificulty, teathrical cutscenes, over dramatic story) the result is a game that is considered very varied and well done by today standards.
I dont know, maybe the trick for a good remake is to add the "commodities" current games have with the "flavor" old games used to have.
Anyway I wouldnt call twin snakes "a remake" is more likely a port from the PSX version. And taking that into account it should had the features the original had. The vr missions were a "side game" you could do if you got stuck in the main game.
Is not that surprising that WOW is getting all thumbs up not only this comes from blizzard and we are talking about dedicated warcraft fans, these guys are playing for free! (drum roll! thank you! tip the waitress on the way out please!)
Anyway jokes apart, is interesting that they are liking the game without PVP think about it, no PVP means no Player Killers, less vandalism and pillage, less laggy battles(since the CPU only has to conscern on monsters and their AI) and no abusing on the newbies(!!!) could this have to do with the good scores is receiving? I mean we are talking about a world where you can only team play with others,BUT not fight, not even if they are a supossed enemy race or people you just dont like. Maybe blizzard should check that out.
Im not in yet, but is as good as they say I will get it as soon as I have a decent dsl line.
MS (and every gamedev) is now realizing that old franchises with new technology and (sometimes) gameplay, have more chances to succeed over new ones. Want to know Why? Fanbases and instant name recognition, a new franchise (most of the time) doesnt have a following base even if its a quality product (beyond good and evil) it has a good 50% chance of not being recognized due to this.
Yeah I Know a lot of "retro" games have never pulled it off and some have even been cancelled. but MS is just checking numbers, and right now the most expected and played games are sequels and some of them are more than 10 years old. (zelda, mario, mk, metroid, ninja gaiden, half life, doom, etc)
The saddest thing is that we are the only ones to be blamed, we are the ones who put aside new and innovative games (beyond good and evil,rez,ico) in favor of new versions of old franchises. Think about that the next time you are in a game store.
You can buy an xbox an make a linux box with it (you would need around 50 more bucks for a modchip and you would need an extra $100 for a decent hdd), but exactly what good will that make? the beauty of linux is that it would run in a $400 pc and it would be much better than in an xbox (since the CPU could be faster and you can buy extra ram).
But you would need a $1000 bucks pc to run Ninja Gaiden (if it existed) and/or Halo in a decent PC. it costs $200 in a xbox.
What would you like better a half baked linux station with the illusion you "hurt" a company by using your money in buying their product? or a game station at almost 20% of its price? you do the math.
I was going to mod you down, but Id deciced to answer instead. You are a bit confused, Doom 3 is already finished, there was a demo version of it running in the last quakecon, you can already preorder it in the web site, if anything goes well it should be shipping by june (along with a controversial xbox version) theres nothing that even remotely suggests that doom 3 wont be released this year.(unlike DNF and HL2)
Quake 2 was a very important game back in its time most of all for is modifiable engine and internet capable gaming it was the most popular of them all before half life (and counter strike) showed up, actually theres still communities that create models and modifications for it specially now that they have the GPL code. So a remake of quake 2 (with a new engine) wont be as ignored as you might think. (although it stikes me as odd since quake 4 is already on the works by raven software)
If you stop making games for the cube your only two possible reasonings can be these
1) You're stupid
2) You can't compete with Nintendo in quality.
"Cube owners are just too smart to buy stupid generic movie based game number 3."
For god's sake mods please mod parent down! That has to be the most biased comment Ive ever read on slashdot!
And FYI the gamecube has ETM, T3 and The Hulk which fit the "generic movie to game" bill perfectly.
If you actually do the numbers all consoles have basically the same number of "good games" only 5-10% of the games that come to any console are considered "excellent" the gamecube is no exception.
To be honest, I have no idea why but the gamecube is having trouble to be sold. small US developers (like akklaim, midway and others) cant afford to create a title and not recovering their expenses. Not because they are stupid or CANT compete with nintendo (in a certain way they are competing with nintendo and any other developer anyway) but because is a high risk investment.
Ok, the site looks nice, the sounds looks cool (it would be better used anywhere else) but seriously according the article FAQ.
PC devs still use the Direct X SDK
XBOX devs still have to buy and use the XDK
It (needs) uses visual studio. (NET)
what is new here?
This is just a Software Bundle of 3 "different" products. MS claims you are going to be able to code in dx9 choose a different configuration and use the same code in xbox (WHICH is sadly not true, if xbox2 doesnt have a hdd and a multi processor) But chances are if you have the XDK you are already doing exactly the same, Theres nothing new here.
If MS actually wants a bite of middleware, they should look at renderware, and throw their own ready to use engines (physics, AI, sound, rendering) and tools to their XDK and charge it... although remembering what they did with directplay (80% of gamedevs use plain winsock instead of that mess) Im glad they havent.
Ninja Gaiden and Halo Xbox most sold titles are both M
same goes for GTA for ps2
Half life and CS for the PC
Doom 3 for the PC and xbox and half life 2 are both M
Quality not (ESRB ratings) is what has been made those games succesful. Copy cat publishers have always tried to imitate quality games, forget about the quality and always end up with an inferior product. (streets of LA anyone?) their rating is due to their nature (they are games based on violent scenarios) NOT what made them succesful or not.
Doom 3 definitely needs more smeared blood on the walls and floors.
Wait till the game is out and you wil see what I mean, theres a lot of "redecoration" you can do.
Im trying to recover from the awe here...
You didnt saw the trailer or the quakecon videos have you? Well just picture this? Zombie, shotgun, "clean background" behind, press trigger BAM, zombie with a large hole, red splattered wall and ceiling with little pieces of meat, get the idea? seriously some scenes from Doom 3 are more than enough to make certain people sick. The bathroom cut where "pinky" is eating a zombie is.. well disgusting, the scene is as gruel as can be I felt physically ill the first time I saw that.
However if grit is what you want, go and play any silent hill game, it has more than you bargained for and it also features a grain filter.
By the way a lot of people prefer to see quality in their images than "grit" not just as a visual preference, is also easier to spot a hidden area or an item that way, thats the reason why almost everyone turns the grainy filter from silent hill 2/3 off.
Quake 3 feels like quake 2 and quake1? and quake4 will bt the same? I dont think so.
Guys please, this is a computer experts popular site, saying "doom looks like any fps" does NOT exactly show expertise but exactly the opposite. I mean, have you played? UT 2004? or Call of duty or battlefield? or Tribes 2? or (heaven forbid) halo? FPS have evolved A LOT. Ok, you still look for someone to shot and do so, but
Heres a small brief of things you can do in FPS today that werent possible "back when we played in the school lan"
Up to 128 players in a single match.
Up to 8 player team
different classes per player.
Multiple vehicle driving. which includes, pilot, copilot, gunner, bomber. and this include, land, air and sea vehicles (in some cases)
healing and giving items to partners
up to 12 completely different type of games, (is not deathmatch and cTF anymore)
VOICE COMMUNICATION (gosh, how many times I got killed for typing something at q3?)
Team based gaming.
on the fly map design (in some cases).
RTS elements!
"Real life" guns and ammo behaviour (in some cases)
real human like intelligent bots. (ut 2004 has such good bots, you never miss playing against humans!)
Realistic physics! (one thing I loved about halo, was that you cant flip enemy cars with bombs!;) )
MUCH MUCH better graphics.(yeah I know Im a graphics freak, so what?)
Try to compare any of this features with your favorite ("back in school") game. You think quake 4, (quake in the doom 3 engine) will be the same than quake except for the looks ? maybe you are right, but that doesnt mean the entire genere hasn't changed in 10 years!
And if you havent, and you have the PC to do so, go and pick at least the XMP demo of ut2004, you owe at yourself at least that much.
A good percenteage of smart people are computer literate and more than a half of this population are gamers to a certain degree. Sum a+b and some gamers and game tech enthusiast are among the smartest people in the world.
Unfortunately I dont think they are targetting at computer enthusiasts since anyone would recognize the "phantom" as a half baked pc, they are actually targetting at non gamers, non tech savy people that require assistance to pull any task in a computer. This and "business enthusiasts" that invested and probably still label the n-gage as a "great product"
Exactly at what point you are allowed to conduct a criminal investigation on a fraud? I mean this is off topic of course;) as Infinium labs is a serious company with lots of fine products to offer (in a possible future), but there are actual laws against spamming and frauds, yet I see this "deals" spawning around everywhere. (we are all familiar with the poor prince of Nigeria who wanted our bank account for his money) At what point are the feds allowed to investigate and take actions?
Flamebait????
My life is complete.
Seriously guys, I wasnt talking about the ARTICLE as an official statement. I was talking about other "official statements" that turned out to be false. (such as Nintendo not working in a handheld) and others that aparently could be false (Obviously the article should be taken with a lot of salt ) and I was making fun of that period.
For the record I wasnt flame baiting. I honestly believe what I said and I support it
Hmm.. you are partially correct however these ones are official statements.. and well.. you be the judge.
"we will not make a handheld or a console but something different"
the DS is not going to be the succesor of the gameboy"
The DS IS a handheld, the DS WILL compete on the same market than the GBA. Nintendo has and will have more support for the DS than for the GBA
We still dont know 100% about:
"We are going to battle sony on the Price (our products will be cheaper)"
"We are not trying to compete with the PSP (our product wont look or act like the PSP)"
Let's be honest, Nintendo IS competing with the PSP, if they can offer the same features than their competitor in a handheld why they wouldn't do it? anyway lets grand them the benefit of the doubt and wait for results, but so far their PR statements are quite below accurate.
Crap! I really, really thought that you COULDN'T blatanlly lie in an official statement oh well you learn something new every day, first Nintendo said they werent working on a console or a handheld but in "a completely different device" WHAAM! they are working on a handheld, then they said they said "is not going to be expensive" WHAAAM! with those features get ready for a $200 tag! then they said they "were not working in gameboy succesor"WHAAAM!
Watch me as I laugh the next time they "officially announce" that they are not creating a competitor for the PSP or that is coming out this year
Actually I think I have now a "official response" for any announcement from Nintendo:
"Yeah right"
Meanwhile at nintendo PR offices:
PR chief:"What was that noise?"
PR guy:"Is our credibility going down the drain"
PR chief:"Oh I havent heard that before, anyway when is the new non-handheld non-psp competitor coming out?"
PR guy:"research called, is going to be ready in 2 years"
PR chief:"2 months? great! I will officially announce it as once!"
PR GUY:"You were lying about my raise, didnt you?"
PR chief:"Of course not! you are getting one in 2 months! Im going to lunch after I finish this be right back"
PR GUY:"I thought you were going to the Bahamas"
PR chief:"Did I mention the sky is green today? it looks lovely!"
There is an actual study on the book "Digital based learning" which talks about the relation between gaming and learning. According the book students who play action games, not only develop fast reflexes but they also develop a "faster logic" they are able to take reactions and analize situations in a short period of time and under pressure, they react well to fast paced activities and timed quizes and puzzles, unfortunately they also get bored easier with slow paced activities such as reading or (worse yet) listening to someone else reading.
While this may seem obvious, do the test yourself, play street fighter (or any fighting action game) in turbo for half an hour and then play it on normal speed again. Normal seems like slow mode now Amazing isn't? thats your brain adapting to the speed of the environment. Thats exactly what happens to kids. (no wonder why they get bored at school)
The book promotes that classes should need to be more pro-active and use fast paced educative meethods including software in order to keep up with this tendence.
Thats why the genere is called "FPS" First person shooter. Come on try to design a game that fits that description without coming out with something like doom. a: you can't. Is like saying: "Im going to do a platform game that doesnt play at all like mario!" you can't. Platform means a game where a characters moves around jumping in floating platforms hence mario. For your game to fit a genere it has to play and/or have elements of the genere ergo it will look like other games.
Besides the FP, first person perspective has been used in several games that are not shooters. Shen Mue, silent hill 3, Morrowind to mention a few. they do not look or play like doom but they belong to different generes.
"Hear someone complaining about something that someone else likes, and you will hear someone not understanding something that someone else does."
--My grandpa.
You are missing two big points , physics is a major improvement in games, while it looks like a minor the experience of actually seing an object act like it would in real life enhances gameplay and allows new techniques that couldnt be possible before (ninja gaiden, devil may cry, doom3, half life2).
And real time photorealism, It doesnt meant "pretty graphics" it means graphics undistinguishable from a real life picture, we are not at that stage yet, but getting there. This days in new games is practically impossible to distinguish a single polygon as such, even though every single image is compressed of thousands of those.
Side rant:
No offense, but Im tired of the "old games were better" talk. Games were better when they were in monochrome? a: no, they werent. I couldn't stand a straight hour playing pong, pacman or asteroids anymore, I had my share thanks. Now I have ninja gaiden,zelda and metal gear solid here at my side, Im I supossed to have more fun by shooting a single pixel out of a triangle into a polygon and repeat the same thing for hours to no end? than by playing a character in a movie look/feel and sound like experience? Is more complex yes thats true, but.. my gaming skills have grown to sustain that complexity. (not enough to master them, but enough to enjoy them)
Dont get me wrong, they were great games and they still desserve praise, but they were good to play back then gameplay has evolved to complete cinematic experiences by now. if you fail to see that point, ok, that is your taste but the statement that experiences were more complete in monochrome IMO is just naive.
p.s. Er... the article is a JOKE is not REAL is a SATIRE a PARODY not to be taken seriously, but you have to admit is a great conversation starter.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Being treated like perverts... (and for buying quake and half life no less), if being labelled as "antisocial geek" wasnt enough.
I've just wondered something: have these politicians took into consideration how would this move ultimately affect sales and then estimated the percenteage of M rated games being made in California at this day? and how much of that income comes as taxes for the state? also have they considered M rated game players actually have voting age?
According politicians and government who are trying to shove the public the idea that R rated games are "murder simulators" a M rated game is worst than a R rated movie, why? because you are causing not just watching the violence.
What these guys are not considering is that in certain movies the perspective of the hero inviting the audience to take the role of that character SO is basically the same case scenario, yet we dont see anyone accusing Rambo 2 of being a "murder simulator" why? because that argument is a lot of BS thats why.
In any case a Movie is fairly more convincing (and probably mind warping) for a person than any game out there, a 4 year old can easily recognize any scene from "medal of honor" or even "manhunt" as a videogame. But a war veteran can see a scene from "saving private ryan" or "black hawk down" and find it awfully close to his actual memories.
No offense guys but I would take this with a large chunk of salt, I mean how many times we were told the doom movie was being made (starring Arnold Shwarzenegger no less)? Metroid being made by Jhon woo? come on! april fools was 4 days ago.
If Metroid ever gets made it will be some stinker ad stunt like the Tomb Raider movie done by some guy whom latest work was a sitcom. Not John Freaking Woh the guy made MI2! (it wasnt that good but it was a very high budget movie), Besides as much as it hurts to say it, Metroid is not THAT Mainstream, is more possible they choose a franchise like Zelda (Link) Halo or (heaven help us) a Pokemon live action movie.
A great example of a bad remake is the new 3d Castlevania for ps2 a lot of people got the impression that the problem was the leap to 3d, but the actual problem was the "return to form" castlevania evolved with each title to the awarded new Castlevania:SOTN format that we got in the PSX (multiple weapons, inventories, metroid style replayable non linear levels,etc) and the gba remakes, unfortunately they ignored that and tried the same format of the original castlevania, obviously the result is something that is considered dull by today standards: one weapon, no inventory, linear levels. (The same happened to TMNT but for sanity's sake lets not go to there)
Curiously enough Ninja Gaiden ( a remake of a much simpler in form game) decided to use a format similar to SOTN (inventory, several weapons, replayable non linear levels) while keeping some of the elements that made the series famous (extreme dificulty, teathrical cutscenes, over dramatic story) the result is a game that is considered very varied and well done by today standards.
I dont know, maybe the trick for a good remake is to add the "commodities" current games have with the "flavor" old games used to have.
Anyway I wouldnt call twin snakes "a remake" is more likely a port from the PSX version. And taking that into account it should had the features the original had. The vr missions were a "side game" you could do if you got stuck in the main game.
Is not that surprising that WOW is getting all thumbs up not only this comes from blizzard and we are talking about dedicated warcraft fans, these guys are playing for free! (drum roll! thank you! tip the waitress on the way out please!)
Anyway jokes apart, is interesting that they are liking the game without PVP think about it, no PVP means no Player Killers, less vandalism and pillage, less laggy battles(since the CPU only has to conscern on monsters and their AI) and no abusing on the newbies(!!!) could this have to do with the good scores is receiving? I mean we are talking about a world where you can only team play with others,BUT not fight, not even if they are a supossed enemy race or people you just dont like. Maybe blizzard should check that out.
Im not in yet, but is as good as they say I will get it as soon as I have a decent dsl line.
MOST probably this game will still be released for the xbox (since it was made for it) it will only be released by another publisher house.
MS (and every gamedev) is now realizing that old franchises with new technology and (sometimes) gameplay, have more chances to succeed over new ones. Want to know Why? Fanbases and instant name recognition, a new franchise (most of the time) doesnt have a following base even if its a quality product (beyond good and evil) it has a good 50% chance of not being recognized due to this.
Yeah I Know a lot of "retro" games have never pulled it off and some have even been cancelled. but MS is just checking numbers, and right now the most expected and played games are sequels and some of them are more than 10 years old. (zelda, mario, mk, metroid, ninja gaiden, half life, doom, etc)
The saddest thing is that we are the only ones to be blamed, we are the ones who put aside new and innovative games (beyond good and evil,rez,ico) in favor of new versions of old franchises. Think about that the next time you are in a game store.
You can buy an xbox an make a linux box with it (you would need around 50 more bucks for a modchip and you would need an extra $100 for a decent hdd), but exactly what good will that make? the beauty of linux is that it would run in a $400 pc and it would be much better than in an xbox (since the CPU could be faster and you can buy extra ram).
But you would need a $1000 bucks pc to run Ninja Gaiden (if it existed) and/or Halo in a decent PC. it costs $200 in a xbox.
What would you like better a half baked linux station with the illusion you "hurt" a company by using your money in buying their product? or a game station at almost 20% of its price? you do the math.
There goes the karma
I was going to mod you down, but Id deciced to answer instead. You are a bit confused, Doom 3 is already finished, there was a demo version of it running in the last quakecon, you can already preorder it in the web site, if anything goes well it should be shipping by june (along with a controversial xbox version) theres nothing that even remotely suggests that doom 3 wont be released this year.(unlike DNF and HL2)
Quake 2 was a very important game back in its time most of all for is modifiable engine and internet capable gaming it was the most popular of them all before half life (and counter strike) showed up, actually theres still communities that create models and modifications for it specially now that they have the GPL code. So a remake of quake 2 (with a new engine) wont be as ignored as you might think. (although it stikes me as odd since quake 4 is already on the works by raven software)
If you stop making games for the cube your only two possible reasonings can be these 1) You're stupid 2) You can't compete with Nintendo in quality. "Cube owners are just too smart to buy stupid generic movie based game number 3."
For god's sake mods please mod parent down! That has to be the most biased comment Ive ever read on slashdot!
And FYI the gamecube has ETM, T3 and The Hulk which fit the "generic movie to game" bill perfectly.
If you actually do the numbers all consoles have basically the same number of "good games" only 5-10% of the games that come to any console are considered "excellent" the gamecube is no exception.
To be honest, I have no idea why but the gamecube is having trouble to be sold. small US developers (like akklaim, midway and others) cant afford to create a title and not recovering their expenses. Not because they are stupid or CANT compete with nintendo (in a certain way they are competing with nintendo and any other developer anyway) but because is a high risk investment.
PC devs still use the Direct X SDK
XBOX devs still have to buy and use the XDK
It (needs) uses visual studio. (NET) ... although remembering what they did with directplay (80% of gamedevs use plain winsock instead of that mess) Im glad they havent.
what is new here?
This is just a Software Bundle of 3 "different" products. MS claims you are going to be able to code in dx9 choose a different configuration and use the same code in xbox (WHICH is sadly not true, if xbox2 doesnt have a hdd and a multi processor) But chances are if you have the XDK you are already doing exactly the same, Theres nothing new here.
If MS actually wants a bite of middleware, they should look at renderware, and throw their own ready to use engines (physics, AI, sound, rendering) and tools to their XDK and charge it
Ninja Gaiden and Halo Xbox most sold titles are both M
same goes for GTA for ps2
Half life and CS for the PC
Doom 3 for the PC and xbox and half life 2 are both M
Quality not (ESRB ratings) is what has been made those games succesful. Copy cat publishers have always tried to imitate quality games, forget about the quality and always end up with an inferior product. (streets of LA anyone?) their rating is due to their nature (they are games based on violent scenarios) NOT what made them succesful or not.
Doom 3 definitely needs more smeared blood on the walls and floors.
Wait till the game is out and you wil see what I mean, theres a lot of "redecoration" you can do.
Im trying to recover from the awe here...
You didnt saw the trailer or the quakecon videos have you? Well just picture this? Zombie, shotgun, "clean background" behind, press trigger BAM, zombie with a large hole, red splattered wall and ceiling with little pieces of meat, get the idea? seriously some scenes from Doom 3 are more than enough to make certain people sick. The bathroom cut where "pinky" is eating a zombie is.. well disgusting, the scene is as gruel as can be I felt physically ill the first time I saw that.
However if grit is what you want, go and play any silent hill game, it has more than you bargained for and it also features a grain filter.
By the way a lot of people prefer to see quality in their images than "grit" not just as a visual preference, is also easier to spot a hidden area or an item that way, thats the reason why almost everyone turns the grainy filter from silent hill 2/3 off.
Guys please, this is a computer experts popular site, saying "doom looks like any fps" does NOT exactly show expertise but exactly the opposite. I mean, have you played? UT 2004? or Call of duty or battlefield? or Tribes 2? or (heaven forbid) halo? FPS have evolved A LOT. Ok, you still look for someone to shot and do so, but Heres a small brief of things you can do in FPS today that werent possible "back when we played in the school lan"
Up to 128 players in a single match.
Up to 8 player team
different classes per player.
Multiple vehicle driving. which includes, pilot, copilot, gunner, bomber. and this include, land, air and sea vehicles (in some cases)
healing and giving items to partners
up to 12 completely different type of games, (is not deathmatch and cTF anymore)
VOICE COMMUNICATION (gosh, how many times I got killed for typing something at q3?)
Team based gaming.
on the fly map design (in some cases).
RTS elements!
"Real life" guns and ammo behaviour (in some cases)
real human like intelligent bots. (ut 2004 has such good bots, you never miss playing against humans!)
Realistic physics! (one thing I loved about halo, was that you cant flip enemy cars with bombs! ;) )
MUCH MUCH better graphics.(yeah I know Im a graphics freak, so what?)
Try to compare any of this features with your favorite ("back in school") game. You think quake 4, (quake in the doom 3 engine) will be the same than quake except for the looks ? maybe you are right, but that doesnt mean the entire genere hasn't changed in 10 years!
And if you havent, and you have the PC to do so, go and pick at least the XMP demo of ut2004, you owe at yourself at least that much.
A good percenteage of smart people are computer literate and more than a half of this population are gamers to a certain degree. Sum a+b and some gamers and game tech enthusiast are among the smartest people in the world.
Unfortunately I dont think they are targetting at computer enthusiasts since anyone would recognize the "phantom" as a half baked pc, they are actually targetting at non gamers, non tech savy people that require assistance to pull any task in a computer. This and "business enthusiasts" that invested and probably still label the n-gage as a "great product"
Exactly at what point you are allowed to conduct a criminal investigation on a fraud? I mean this is off topic of course ;) as Infinium labs is a serious company with lots of fine products to offer (in a possible future), but there are actual laws against spamming and frauds, yet I see this "deals" spawning around everywhere. (we are all familiar with the poor prince of Nigeria who wanted our bank account for his money) At what point are the feds allowed to investigate and take actions?
Flamebait????
My life is complete.
Seriously guys, I wasnt talking about the ARTICLE as an official statement. I was talking about other "official statements" that turned out to be false. (such as Nintendo not working in a handheld) and others that aparently could be false (Obviously the article should be taken with a lot of salt ) and I was making fun of that period.
For the record I wasnt flame baiting. I honestly believe what I said and I support it
Hmm.. you are partially correct however these ones are official statements.. and well.. you be the judge.
"we will not make a handheld or a console but something different"
the DS is not going to be the succesor of the gameboy"
The DS IS a handheld, the DS WILL compete on the same market than the GBA. Nintendo has and will have more support for the DS than for the GBA
We still dont know 100% about:
"We are going to battle sony on the Price (our products will be cheaper)"
"We are not trying to compete with the PSP (our product wont look or act like the PSP)"
Let's be honest, Nintendo IS competing with the PSP, if they can offer the same features than their competitor in a handheld why they wouldn't do it? anyway lets grand them the benefit of the doubt and wait for results, but so far their PR statements are quite below accurate.
Crap! I really, really thought that you COULDN'T blatanlly lie in an official statement oh well you learn something new every day, first Nintendo said they werent working on a console or a handheld but in "a completely different device" WHAAM! they are working on a handheld, then they said they said "is not going to be expensive" WHAAAM! with those features get ready for a $200 tag! then they said they "were not working in gameboy succesor" WHAAAM!
Watch me as I laugh the next time they "officially announce" that they are not creating a competitor for the PSP or that is coming out this year
Actually I think I have now a "official response" for any announcement from Nintendo: "Yeah right"
Meanwhile at nintendo PR offices:
PR chief:"What was that noise?"
PR guy:"Is our credibility going down the drain"
PR chief:"Oh I havent heard that before, anyway when is the new non-handheld non-psp competitor coming out?"
PR guy:"research called, is going to be ready in 2 years"
PR chief:"2 months? great! I will officially announce it as once!"
PR GUY:"You were lying about my raise, didnt you?"
PR chief:"Of course not! you are getting one in 2 months! Im going to lunch after I finish this be right back"
PR GUY:"I thought you were going to the Bahamas"
PR chief:"Did I mention the sky is green today? it looks lovely!"
Hmm.. I meant FPS as Frames Per Second not First person shooter.
There is an actual study on the book "Digital based learning" which talks about the relation between gaming and learning. According the book students who play action games, not only develop fast reflexes but they also develop a "faster logic" they are able to take reactions and analize situations in a short period of time and under pressure, they react well to fast paced activities and timed quizes and puzzles, unfortunately they also get bored easier with slow paced activities such as reading or (worse yet) listening to someone else reading.
While this may seem obvious, do the test yourself, play street fighter (or any fighting action game) in turbo for half an hour and then play it on normal speed again. Normal seems like slow mode now Amazing isn't? thats your brain adapting to the speed of the environment. Thats exactly what happens to kids. (no wonder why they get bored at school)
The book promotes that classes should need to be more pro-active and use fast paced educative meethods including software in order to keep up with this tendence.
Thats why the genere is called "FPS" First person shooter. Come on try to design a game that fits that description without coming out with something like doom. a: you can't. Is like saying: "Im going to do a platform game that doesnt play at all like mario!" you can't. Platform means a game where a characters moves around jumping in floating platforms hence mario. For your game to fit a genere it has to play and/or have elements of the genere ergo it will look like other games. Besides the FP, first person perspective has been used in several games that are not shooters. Shen Mue, silent hill 3, Morrowind to mention a few. they do not look or play like doom but they belong to different generes.
"Hear someone complaining about something that someone else likes, and you will hear someone not understanding something that someone else does."
--My grandpa.
You are missing two big points , physics is a major improvement in games, while it looks like a minor the experience of actually seing an object act like it would in real life enhances gameplay and allows new techniques that couldnt be possible before (ninja gaiden, devil may cry, doom3, half life2). And real time photorealism, It doesnt meant "pretty graphics" it means graphics undistinguishable from a real life picture, we are not at that stage yet, but getting there. This days in new games is practically impossible to distinguish a single polygon as such, even though every single image is compressed of thousands of those. .. my gaming skills have grown to sustain that complexity. (not enough to master them, but enough to enjoy them)
;)
Side rant:
No offense, but Im tired of the "old games were better" talk. Games were better when they were in monochrome? a: no, they werent. I couldn't stand a straight hour playing pong, pacman or asteroids anymore, I had my share thanks. Now I have ninja gaiden,zelda and metal gear solid here at my side, Im I supossed to have more fun by shooting a single pixel out of a triangle into a polygon and repeat the same thing for hours to no end? than by playing a character in a movie look/feel and sound like experience? Is more complex yes thats true, but
Dont get me wrong, they were great games and they still desserve praise, but they were good to play back then gameplay has evolved to complete cinematic experiences by now.
if you fail to see that point, ok, that is your taste but the statement that experiences were more complete in monochrome IMO is just naive.
p.s. Er... the article is a JOKE is not REAL is a SATIRE a PARODY not to be taken seriously, but you have to admit is a great conversation starter.