Pfft, shame on Marvel for trying to pull this nonsense. They're probably the only company doing this, and I can think of a few examples of fans recreating characters they like in City of Heroes. One that comes to mind is a group who have designed their characters to be a tribute to Capcom's Mega Man video games, amongst others.
"Long answer and editorial: Konfabulator is a resurrection of the old Apple Desk Accessories if you used those. This has been used to claim that really, Konfabulator isn't doing anything new, and that Apple isn't stealing Konfab. I find this argument to be malarky. Sure, Konfab is the spiritual decendent of Desk Accesories. And maybe even Tiger's widgets started as a coincidentally parrallel development within Apple. But writing them in JavaScript? The look and feel? The likely base package of Widgets? Come on. The most you can give Apple is that someone started working on a primitive version of a Desk Accesories successor, and someone came along and said "That's neat. Why don't you make it more like Konfabulator?""
It's been linked to already, but you might find this to be worth a read. It goes to show how dissimilar the two actually are.
Well, to be fair to Pixar, I'm pretty sure that Disney had a little bit of say with regard to the direction/target audiences of the movies covered under that five-picture deal (I can't say for sure, of course, but it wouldn't particularly surprise me)... I'm sure Pixar will "wake up" as soon as Cars is out, and the Disney contract is in effect, over.;P
What other games are missing from Mac OS X?
--
Anything by Capcom. Games from series like the (vast) Mega Man saga, Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe, and so on and so forth would be great things to have on OS X.
It'd also be nice to see OS X versions of the recent Mega Man and Street Fighter "Anniversary Collection" packs (which were essentially digests of the primary installments in those series, along with some extras), purely for the fact that those would be great timewasters to play with on, say, a portable, when you really ought to be working or something.
Same goes for Konami. Some Mac-based Castlevania or Metal Gear action wouldn't go amiss.
I had also been hoping at one point to see Argonaut bring some of their franchises (old and new) to the platform - such as Croc, I-Ninja, and Starglider, for example. Given the recent events surrounding the company, though, that seems pretty unlikely at this point.:/ Ah well.
Those guys aside, I think a good solution to the situation with Mac games, would be for more encouragment and better support to be made available to developers, to encourage them to create games on the platform. There's a lot they could do, if they had the right incentives. This might also open the door for more new-and-original content than is already available, which may well be a better thing than getting bogged down with ports (not to say those are always a bad thing, of course, although I'd rather see more developers take the approach that Blizzard does as opposed to getting ports done later, but that's another kettle of fish entirely.;P).
I hate to spoil the fun, but n-philes is a Nintendo fan site. I've never really visited there until now, but I wouldn't trust it for reliable PSP info.
I hate to spoil the fun, too, but the info came from game developers and industry analysts, not the N-Philes site staff - it had been reported in multiple places, that was just the only link to hand at the time.;P
Two key points make the PSP 'forgettable', so to speak;
1: The battery life is being stated as a mere 90 minutes by developers (analysts have been reporting it) - http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=346.
2: It's apparent price-point is phenomenally high (it was seemingly leaked by Gamespot, and then pulled back down again because they'd supposedly broken a Non-Disclosure Agreement - http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=301 ). According to this report, it may well be around $350, and that doesn't include the cost of a game, and a Memory Stick Pro Duo With Magic Gate, which is kind of a neccessity should you want to save your game data.
A RTS game using the touch screen and extra space for the obvious things would make all of the thousands of RTS junkies to go and buy what is possibly their first console system.
Does Advance Wars DS count?:D
http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=356
.. Minidisc drive, cartridge port, dual analog sticks, d-pad and twin shoulder buttons.
Goodbye 10 hours (PSP)
Indeed, indeed. The PSP, according to analysts (who have apparently heard, in turn, from game developers), is apparently only managing a battery-life of around 90 minutes or so ( http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=346 ). @_@
I realize these games are basically at "rumor" stage for the DS now, but if and when they come out, I WILL buy a DS. Maybe two.
Good news for you - they're not 'rumour stage', they have been confirmed.;)
http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=396 - both are mentioned by their respective creators here.;D
GBA carts can take a pretty good beating, and don't mind being stuffed in your back pocket all day.
They also don't mind accidentally going through the wash in the same pocket you forgot to take them out of, and taking a spin in the drier, either. ^^;;
"Backward compatibility is the way to go. Nintendo's Game Boy line has benefitted quite a bit by allowing newer machines to play older games. I don't see why it wouldn't also apply to console systems."
Thing is, though, it's always been done in-hardware (with no emulation) in the Game Boy line - for example, there's a little switch inside of the GBA cartridge slot, which is pressed only by GB/GBC cartridges - this is how it differentiates between what on-board hardware to use.
Obviously, with the Game Boy line, the hardware is so small, that it can be added to a console relatively easily - but that's not quite so easy with the home-console market, where between generations, the capabilities of the consoles, and the kinds of processors they use, tend to change drastically, which can sometimes rule out in-hardware and/or emulated backward-compatibility.
Also worth taking a look at is VGMix.com, which has all sorts of mixes up, even some kind of obscure ones (there's a great mix from the b&w GB follow-up to DKC - Donkey Kong Land - there, too, called 'Flash Flooded', which is highly recommended). OtherSteve.com also has a couple of nifty mixes in the Downloads section.
I'm not sure about Pac-Man and Defender specifically, but digitised versions of some of those records (as well as some really obscure ones, such as a Yars Revenge 'radio drama' record O_o;; ) are available at the Digital Press classic gaming site.
"But, are there any decent win32 clones of Q*Bert? I've been searching for years but still haven't found one."
There are several Q*Bert clones listed on Remakes.org, along with remakes and clones of scores of other games.;)
I didn't realize that you could trick Crystal Chronicles into thinking the GB Player was a GBA.
There's no trickery involved - the GB Player *IS* a GBA. It's just in a casing that attatches to a GC.;P
(BTW, the official abbreviation for the real PSX is "PS1")
Though it might be the official abbreviation now now, it wasn't until the miniaturized "PSone" console existed - before that, it was never abbreviated as anything but 'PSX' (this can still be seen on ancient sites, such as the archives of several developer/publisher sites that can be found on the Wayback Machine).
"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised of LARPing became the next big thing, and games that are offshoots of RPGs became bigger, such as the White-Wolf titles, only with more roleplay."
That wouldn't surprise me, either, with the apparent surge of popularity RP'ing has gotten in recent years (I'm of the opinion that freeform roleplaying sections on web forums has helped many new people to get into the hobby). That'll be interesting to see...
"I wonder if they borrowed a certain GBA NES emulator to get the effect though?"
I've seen this question come up before - asked to the authors of the 'certain GBA NES emulator' you mentioned. Their answer: It's Nintendo's own emulation code.;)
"I'm hoping that Nintendo makes the Gamecube 2 compatible with the Gamecube, but there's been no comment on that."
IIRC, they confirmed a while ago that their next console would be backwardly compatible, so that peoples' investments in games this generation is not wasted when getting new hardware.
"Since those recommendations have been instituted, the number of seizures reported to the company by consumers has dropped from 22 in 1999 to six in 2003."
So, there were 22 seizures reported in 1999. That is a really miniscule number as it is. Then, in 2003, there were only 6 known seizures reported - in comparison, that's virtually nothing at all.
How on EARTH can this family believe that "Nintendo should have reported that its video games were not safe and not suitable for use because they triggered seizures", and expect that Nintendo should "rank all games according to the seizure risk, reformat all its games to reduce the chance of seizures, fund a nationwide advertising campaign to inform the public about the chance of seizures, allow all game owners to trade high seizure risk games in for low seizure risk games and to establish a refund program so everyone with Nintendo games can get their money back"? This really looks to me like they're taking it way too far - it's not Nintendo's fault that their son had a seizure: Video games cannot and do not suddenly make seizures happen by some bizarro magic - there has to be a pre-existing condition for them to even take place. Nintendo shouldn't be expected, by anyone, to have to go back through all their games to 'reformat' them, either - if people have a condition involving seizures, and they get seizures from video games, then no amount of going back and making adjustments to hundreds of old video games is going to change that fact. And again, that fact is not Nintendo's fault (or anyone's, for that matter).
And as for wanting the court to order "Nintendo to put warnings about the possibility of video games triggering seizures on the video game packages and on the screen while the game is in use", well, that's just ridiculous. 1: They already have those warnings in the packaging and manuals. In Europe, they often include an additional seperate card/sheet to warn about seizure risks, AS WELL AS the warnings printed in every single manual for every single game and console released. And 2: Did they even consider that the majority (going by number of seizure complaints compared to game sales, as in the article), who don't get these seizures, might be annoyed by having the view of their game obscured by some on-screen warning they don't need? Actually, come to think of it, did these folks even check the warnings and manuals and stuff through with their kid before letting him play the game(s)? I would hope that they did take the preventive measure of reading the included warnings. If not, why not? They certainly seem worked up enough about their son getting a seizure to try and sue somebody who's not responsible for it over the matter.
Also, how come they're not also suing the likes of Sony and Microsoft, and trying to demand that they do the same things as they're trying to demand of Nintendo?
What's next? Are they going to sue the makers or wearers of stripey shirts for triggering their kid's pre-existing condition, too?
"This seems to indicate that, once again, people made a judgement on a game without actually playing it."
Well, the ESRB don't play the games they rate, either. From their FAQ;
To get a game certified with an ESRB rating, publishers fill out a detailed questionnaire explaining exactly what's in the game, and submit it to ESRB along with actual videotaped footage of the game, showing the most extreme content and an accurate representation of the context and product as a whole. Working independently, three trained raters then view the game footage and recommend the rating and content descriptors they believe are most appropriate. ESRB then compares the raters' recommendations to make sure that there's consensus. Usually, the raters agree and their recommendation becomes final. However, when the raters recommend different ratings, additional raters may be requested to review the game in order to reach broader consensus. Once consensus on a rating and content descriptors is reached, ESRB issues an official rating certificate to the game's publisher.
When the game is ready for release to the public, publishers send copies of the final product to the ESRB. The game packaging is reviewed to make sure the ratings are displayed in accordance with ESRB standards. Additionally, ESRB's in-house game experts randomly play the final games to verify that all the information provided during the rating process was accurate and complete.
"I seem to remember that a few years ago there was some artsy type film that involved some females talking to each other about their sex lives. No actualy sex, just talking about it, and the MPAA wanted to rate it NC-17."
Except the group that rated the game wasn't the MPAA, it was The Ontario Film Review Board.;)
Slashdot Mirror
"Is this even possible on the DS or am I way out there on this one?"
;)
It's quite possible, and in fact, internet browsing software is already in development.
Pfft, shame on Marvel for trying to pull this nonsense. They're probably the only company doing this, and I can think of a few examples of fans recreating characters they like in City of Heroes. One that comes to mind is a group who have designed their characters to be a tribute to Capcom's Mega Man video games, amongst others.
"Long answer and editorial: Konfabulator is a resurrection of the old Apple Desk Accessories if you used those. This has been used to claim that really, Konfabulator isn't doing anything new, and that Apple isn't stealing Konfab. I find this argument to be malarky. Sure, Konfab is the spiritual decendent of Desk Accesories. And maybe even Tiger's widgets started as a coincidentally parrallel development within Apple. But writing them in JavaScript? The look and feel? The likely base package of Widgets? Come on. The most you can give Apple is that someone started working on a primitive version of a Desk Accesories successor, and someone came along and said "That's neat. Why don't you make it more like Konfabulator?""
It's been linked to already, but you might find this to be worth a read. It goes to show how dissimilar the two actually are.
Well, to be fair to Pixar, I'm pretty sure that Disney had a little bit of say with regard to the direction/target audiences of the movies covered under that five-picture deal (I can't say for sure, of course, but it wouldn't particularly surprise me)... I'm sure Pixar will "wake up" as soon as Cars is out, and the Disney contract is in effect, over. ;P
What other games are missing from Mac OS X?
:/ Ah well.
;P).
--
Anything by Capcom. Games from series like the (vast) Mega Man saga, Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe, and so on and so forth would be great things to have on OS X.
It'd also be nice to see OS X versions of the recent Mega Man and Street Fighter "Anniversary Collection" packs (which were essentially digests of the primary installments in those series, along with some extras), purely for the fact that those would be great timewasters to play with on, say, a portable, when you really ought to be working or something.
Same goes for Konami. Some Mac-based Castlevania or Metal Gear action wouldn't go amiss.
I had also been hoping at one point to see Argonaut bring some of their franchises (old and new) to the platform - such as Croc, I-Ninja, and Starglider, for example. Given the recent events surrounding the company, though, that seems pretty unlikely at this point.
Those guys aside, I think a good solution to the situation with Mac games, would be for more encouragment and better support to be made available to developers, to encourage them to create games on the platform. There's a lot they could do, if they had the right incentives. This might also open the door for more new-and-original content than is already available, which may well be a better thing than getting bogged down with ports (not to say those are always a bad thing, of course, although I'd rather see more developers take the approach that Blizzard does as opposed to getting ports done later, but that's another kettle of fish entirely.
I hate to spoil the fun, but n-philes is a Nintendo fan site. I've never really visited there until now, but I wouldn't trust it for reliable PSP info. ;P
I hate to spoil the fun, too, but the info came from game developers and industry analysts, not the N-Philes site staff - it had been reported in multiple places, that was just the only link to hand at the time.
I'm finding it hard to forget about.
.
Two key points make the PSP 'forgettable', so to speak;
1: The battery life is being stated as a mere 90 minutes by developers (analysts have been reporting it) - http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=346
2: It's apparent price-point is phenomenally high (it was seemingly leaked by Gamespot, and then pulled back down again because they'd supposedly broken a Non-Disclosure Agreement - http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=301 ). According to this report, it may well be around $350, and that doesn't include the cost of a game, and a Memory Stick Pro Duo With Magic Gate, which is kind of a neccessity should you want to save your game data.
A RTS game using the touch screen and extra space for the obvious things would make all of the thousands of RTS junkies to go and buy what is possibly their first console system. :D
Does Advance Wars DS count?
http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=356
Goodbye 10 hours (PSP)
Indeed, indeed. The PSP, according to analysts (who have apparently heard, in turn, from game developers), is apparently only managing a battery-life of around 90 minutes or so ( http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=346 ). @_@
I realize these games are basically at "rumor" stage for the DS now, but if and when they come out, I WILL buy a DS. Maybe two.
;) ;D
Good news for you - they're not 'rumour stage', they have been confirmed.
http://www.n-philes.com/index.php?Id=396 - both are mentioned by their respective creators here.
GBA carts can take a pretty good beating, and don't mind being stuffed in your back pocket all day.
They also don't mind accidentally going through the wash in the same pocket you forgot to take them out of, and taking a spin in the drier, either. ^^;;
2) 0% - Don't like Macs. ;)
iTMS isn't Mac-only, though.
"N64's disk drive system also MIA." ;)
The 64DD had a limited release in Japan only, several years later than it had originally been due.
"Backward compatibility is the way to go. Nintendo's Game Boy line has benefitted quite a bit by allowing newer machines to play older games. I don't see why it wouldn't also apply to console systems."
Thing is, though, it's always been done in-hardware (with no emulation) in the Game Boy line - for example, there's a little switch inside of the GBA cartridge slot, which is pressed only by GB/GBC cartridges - this is how it differentiates between what on-board hardware to use.
Obviously, with the Game Boy line, the hardware is so small, that it can be added to a console relatively easily - but that's not quite so easy with the home-console market, where between generations, the capabilities of the consoles, and the kinds of processors they use, tend to change drastically, which can sometimes rule out in-hardware and/or emulated backward-compatibility.
Also worth taking a look at is VGMix.com, which has all sorts of mixes up, even some kind of obscure ones (there's a great mix from the b&w GB follow-up to DKC - Donkey Kong Land - there, too, called 'Flash Flooded', which is highly recommended).
OtherSteve.com also has a couple of nifty mixes in the Downloads section.
I'm not sure about Pac-Man and Defender specifically, but digitised versions of some of those records (as well as some really obscure ones, such as a Yars Revenge 'radio drama' record O_o;; ) are available at the Digital Press classic gaming site.
"But, are there any decent win32 clones of Q*Bert? I've been searching for years but still haven't found one." ;)
There are several Q*Bert clones listed on Remakes.org, along with remakes and clones of scores of other games.
I didn't realize that you could trick Crystal Chronicles into thinking the GB Player was a GBA. ;P
There's no trickery involved - the GB Player *IS* a GBA. It's just in a casing that attatches to a GC.
(BTW, the official abbreviation for the real PSX is "PS1")
Though it might be the official abbreviation now now, it wasn't until the miniaturized "PSone" console existed - before that, it was never abbreviated as anything but 'PSX' (this can still be seen on ancient sites, such as the archives of several developer/publisher sites that can be found on the Wayback Machine).
"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised of LARPing became the next big thing, and games that are offshoots of RPGs became bigger, such as the White-Wolf titles, only with more roleplay."
That wouldn't surprise me, either, with the apparent surge of popularity RP'ing has gotten in recent years (I'm of the opinion that freeform roleplaying sections on web forums has helped many new people to get into the hobby). That'll be interesting to see...
"I wonder if they borrowed a certain GBA NES emulator to get the effect though?" ;)
I've seen this question come up before - asked to the authors of the 'certain GBA NES emulator' you mentioned. Their answer: It's Nintendo's own emulation code.
"I'm hoping that Nintendo makes the Gamecube 2 compatible with the Gamecube, but there's been no comment on that."
IIRC, they confirmed a while ago that their next console would be backwardly compatible, so that peoples' investments in games this generation is not wasted when getting new hardware.
"Since those recommendations have been instituted, the number of seizures reported to the company by consumers has dropped from 22 in 1999 to six in 2003."
So, there were 22 seizures reported in 1999. That is a really miniscule number as it is. Then, in 2003, there were only 6 known seizures reported - in comparison, that's virtually nothing at all.
How on EARTH can this family believe that "Nintendo should have reported that its video games were not safe and not suitable for use because they triggered seizures" , and expect that Nintendo should "rank all games according to the seizure risk, reformat all its games to reduce the chance of seizures, fund a nationwide advertising campaign to inform the public about the chance of seizures, allow all game owners to trade high seizure risk games in for low seizure risk games and to establish a refund program so everyone with Nintendo games can get their money back" ? This really looks to me like they're taking it way too far - it's not Nintendo's fault that their son had a seizure: Video games cannot and do not suddenly make seizures happen by some bizarro magic - there has to be a pre-existing condition for them to even take place. Nintendo shouldn't be expected, by anyone, to have to go back through all their games to 'reformat' them, either - if people have a condition involving seizures, and they get seizures from video games, then no amount of going back and making adjustments to hundreds of old video games is going to change that fact. And again, that fact is not Nintendo's fault (or anyone's, for that matter).
And as for wanting the court to order "Nintendo to put warnings about the possibility of video games triggering seizures on the video game packages and on the screen while the game is in use" , well, that's just ridiculous. 1: They already have those warnings in the packaging and manuals. In Europe, they often include an additional seperate card/sheet to warn about seizure risks, AS WELL AS the warnings printed in every single manual for every single game and console released. And 2: Did they even consider that the majority (going by number of seizure complaints compared to game sales, as in the article), who don't get these seizures, might be annoyed by having the view of their game obscured by some on-screen warning they don't need? Actually, come to think of it, did these folks even check the warnings and manuals and stuff through with their kid before letting him play the game(s)? I would hope that they did take the preventive measure of reading the included warnings. If not, why not? They certainly seem worked up enough about their son getting a seizure to try and sue somebody who's not responsible for it over the matter.
Also, how come they're not also suing the likes of Sony and Microsoft, and trying to demand that they do the same things as they're trying to demand of Nintendo?
What's next? Are they going to sue the makers or wearers of stripey shirts for triggering their kid's pre-existing condition, too?
"This seems to indicate that, once again, people made a judgement on a game without actually playing it."
Well, the ESRB don't play the games they rate, either. From their FAQ;
To get a game certified with an ESRB rating, publishers fill out a detailed questionnaire explaining exactly what's in the game, and submit it to ESRB along with actual videotaped footage of the game, showing the most extreme content and an accurate representation of the context and product as a whole. Working independently, three trained raters then view the game footage and recommend the rating and content descriptors they believe are most appropriate. ESRB then compares the raters' recommendations to make sure that there's consensus. Usually, the raters agree and their recommendation becomes final. However, when the raters recommend different ratings, additional raters may be requested to review the game in order to reach broader consensus. Once consensus on a rating and content descriptors is reached, ESRB issues an official rating certificate to the game's publisher.
When the game is ready for release to the public, publishers send copies of the final product to the ESRB. The game packaging is reviewed to make sure the ratings are displayed in accordance with ESRB standards. Additionally, ESRB's in-house game experts randomly play the final games to verify that all the information provided during the rating process was accurate and complete.
"I seem to remember that a few years ago there was some artsy type film that involved some females talking to each other about their sex lives. No actualy sex, just talking about it, and the MPAA wanted to rate it NC-17." ;)
Except the group that rated the game wasn't the MPAA, it was The Ontario Film Review Board.