Ubuntu seemed extremely interesting because of ShipIt - that is, they send CDs for free. How convenient, no hassle of downloading and burning. Too bad they sent me a bunch of corrupted 5.04 discs! I tried different discs on different machines and could never complete an install. Luckilly, I had Kurumin. Far from as cool as Ubuntu is supposed to be, but at least it worked. To be fair, I'll request some 5.10 discs and give it another go.
From each according to his abilities; to each according to his need.
Yet this was the moral law that the professors and leaders and thinkers had wanted to establish all over the earth. If this is what it did in a single small town where we all knew one another, do you care to think what it would do on a world scale? Do you care to imagine what it would be like, if you had to live and to work, when you're tied to all the disasters and all the malingering of the globe? To work - and whenever any men failed anywhere, it's you who would have to make up for it. To work - with no chance to rise, with your meals and your clothes and your home and your pleasure depending on any swindle, any famine, any pestilence anywhere on earth. To work - with no chance for an extra ration, till the Cambodians have been fed and the Patagonians have been sent through college. To work - on a blank check held by every creature born, by men whom you'll never see, whose needs you'll never know, whose ability or laziness or sloppiness or fraud you have no way to learn and no right to question - just to work and work and work - and leave it up to the Ivys and the Geralds of the world to decide whose stomach will consume the effort, the dreams and the days of your life. And this is the moral law to accept? This - a moral ideal?
On the other hand, most people buy products from ads when they are introduced to the product by the ad. Are they going to be selling a new kind of vaccuum cleaner in Resident Evil 4?
No, but I'd bet Sonic Adventure 2 introduced Soap Shoes to lots of people. And it made sense in the context of that game.
It was the promise of gaining patents on the human genome that lured investors into the private consortium that attempted to sequence it in competition with the public effort.
Easy, just check that it has the logo "Compact Disc Digital Audio". If they put that on anything that is not compliant to the Red Book standard - that is, not a pure audio CD - Philips can sue them for trademark infringement.
It was [not] the first FPS with a cool story (Half Life).
Half-Life's story is very good, and it is a fine game... but you should also check Bungie's old first-person shooters: Pathways Into Darkness (93) and the Marathon series (94/95/96). Not only they came first, and were also great games, but their stories - actually a single huge epic hard sci-fi tale - remain as possibly the deepest, most complex and finely crafted plot in a computer or console game, of any genre, ever.
I think Phantasy Star II remains a seriously overrated game. I loved the first game on the Master System, but, in comparison, the sequel was a train wreck of a videogame.
First, it looked really bad. No backgrounds for battle scenes, no pseudo-3D dungeons, everything looked ugly and indistinctive. It's hard to believe it ran on a far more powerful system, since it looks like it's the other way around. And the music was not memorable, except in the sense that, after so many years, I still remember how bad it was. And it was not fun to play: very slow-paced, leveling up took too long, all labyrinths were too confusing.
Now, the story, its supposed strong point. You get home, and find a complete stranger who says something like "d00d your a her0! I wanna j0in ur te4m!!1 And it happens just how many times? Give me a fuckin' break here.
After we discard the ex machina freaks, we are left with only three somewhat interesting characters - Rolf, Nei, and Lutz. All of them have potential, there is some background plot for all of them, but none is properly developed.
Rolf is a descendant of Alis. This is not explored. As a child, he was the sole survivor of the forged accident that was Mother Brain's excuse to ban space travel. This is not explored. He later found and sort of adopted Nei, a mysterious, artificially engineered human/beast hybrid. Beyond the fight against Neifirst, this is not explored. Lutz is the bearer of the wisdom and knowledge of many generations. This is not explored either. Also, he has a story but displays no personality.
Lastly, the characters just don't display emotions. Even in the previous game there was some emotion, but not here. The most disturbing example... In the context of the game, cloning can be seen as giving someone a new life, sort of a resurrection. But after the Neifirst event, the ugly lady at the cloning station says she is no longer allowed to clone Nei... which causes absolutely no reaction from any party member. If the game's plot developement was better, they could have tried something - bribery, threats, any emotional reaction, especially from Rolf. "So, you're saying you could bring back from the dead the woman I love, but will not because of some bureaucracy crap?" Yeah, that's it. "Oh, ok then, bye."
Maybe Phantasy Star II was regarded as good back then... after all, people didn't know many RPGs and had nothing to compare. But now it is clear that the game's flaws are much bigger than its qualities.
Actually they did Code R (Sat, 98), Planet Laika (PS, 99), and Godzilla Generations Maximum Impact (DC, 00). By the way, check out a nice Soul Blazer trilogy fan site.
I don't care much about Final Fantasy, so I hope Square/Enix will do something with their better (IMO) but less known property, the Soul Blazer trilogy - Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma. A visually improved re-release would be great.
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Ubuntu seemed extremely interesting because of ShipIt - that is, they send CDs for free. How convenient, no hassle of downloading and burning. Too bad they sent me a bunch of corrupted 5.04 discs! I tried different discs on different machines and could never complete an install. Luckilly, I had Kurumin. Far from as cool as Ubuntu is supposed to be, but at least it worked. To be fair, I'll request some 5.10 discs and give it another go.
He just says: "Fascinating."
Give me a single-player, Shenmue-like action adventure game set in the Star Trek universe, and I'll be happy.
Actually, someone who would join a friggin' anti-gaming club sounds even more likely to be too much of an asshole to ever get a mate.
Nintendo tried that in the 80s with the Famicom Disk System. They quickly gave up because of piracy (and because the system didn't sell so well).
Why doesn't the short guy ever speak?
Oh, wait, wrong myth-busting show. Nevermind.
Daytona USA (Dreamcast)
Test Drive Le Mans (Dreamcast)
Al Unser Jr. Arcade Racing (Win95/Mac)
Out Run (Genesis)
Easy, just check that it has the logo "Compact Disc Digital Audio" . If they put that on anything that is not compliant to the Red Book standard - that is, not a pure audio CD - Philips can sue them for trademark infringement.
Check out SomethingAwful's "Your Band Sucks" column on SOAD.
This is like watching a comedy movie, except I didn't have to pay for a ticket!
(wait, does it mean MPAA will come after me?)
The Skinhead Hamlet - Shakespeare's play translated into modern English
First, it looked really bad. No backgrounds for battle scenes, no pseudo-3D dungeons, everything looked ugly and indistinctive. It's hard to believe it ran on a far more powerful system, since it looks like it's the other way around. And the music was not memorable, except in the sense that, after so many years, I still remember how bad it was. And it was not fun to play: very slow-paced, leveling up took too long, all labyrinths were too confusing.
Now, the story, its supposed strong point. You get home, and find a complete stranger who says something like "d00d your a her0! I wanna j0in ur te4m!!1 And it happens just how many times? Give me a fuckin' break here.
After we discard the ex machina freaks, we are left with only three somewhat interesting characters - Rolf, Nei, and Lutz. All of them have potential, there is some background plot for all of them, but none is properly developed.
Rolf is a descendant of Alis. This is not explored. As a child, he was the sole survivor of the forged accident that was Mother Brain's excuse to ban space travel. This is not explored. He later found and sort of adopted Nei, a mysterious, artificially engineered human/beast hybrid. Beyond the fight against Neifirst, this is not explored. Lutz is the bearer of the wisdom and knowledge of many generations. This is not explored either. Also, he has a story but displays no personality.
Lastly, the characters just don't display emotions. Even in the previous game there was some emotion, but not here. The most disturbing example... In the context of the game, cloning can be seen as giving someone a new life, sort of a resurrection. But after the Neifirst event, the ugly lady at the cloning station says she is no longer allowed to clone Nei... which causes absolutely no reaction from any party member. If the game's plot developement was better, they could have tried something - bribery, threats, any emotional reaction, especially from Rolf. "So, you're saying you could bring back from the dead the woman I love, but will not because of some bureaucracy crap?" Yeah, that's it. "Oh, ok then, bye."
Maybe Phantasy Star II was regarded as good back then... after all, people didn't know many RPGs and had nothing to compare. But now it is clear that the game's flaws are much bigger than its qualities.
Clive Barker's Undying - great reviews everywhere, terrible sales.
Underrated? Back then, Marathon was THE Mac game series. Pretty much every Mac user out there knew it, had it, and loved it.
/me checks
Actually they did Code R (Sat, 98), Planet Laika (PS, 99), and Godzilla Generations Maximum Impact (DC, 00). By the way, check out a nice Soul Blazer trilogy fan site.
I don't care much about Final Fantasy, so I hope Square/Enix will do something with their better (IMO) but less known property, the Soul Blazer trilogy - Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma. A visually improved re-release would be great.
Quantum breast implants?