Excellent voice acting and characters
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Prey Review
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· Score: 3, Interesting
The voice acting and characterization are really strong in this game, and these elements really help to bring credibility and immersiveness to the experience. In a genre of famously mute protagonists it's really nice to BE such an expressive guy for once.
Play the demo and you'll see what I mean. You'll agree with me 110% when you hear him say "Nasty!" near the beginning!
I don't really know if Intel is much of a competitor in the video card market. Intel graphics adaptors are for people who don't care about video performance. I don't even think you can upgrade from one Intel GPU to another. However, ATI and Nvidia are direct competitors and I'm afraid AMD might do something stupid to nurture their new acquisition - like screw up its currently excellent support for both Radeon and GeForce.
It's also interesting that the new AM2 architecture supports SLI out of the box, but Intel still has no dual core solution for SLI. I thought Nvidia and AMD were buddy buddy. Can AMD go both ways?
Modern CRT televisions don't turn all the way off when you hit the power button. That's because the gas in the cathode ray tube is kept charged so that the device turns on quickly at the flip of the switch. This isn't necessary for TVs to work - it's done so that people don't have to wait so long to start watching.
Yeah, I found this a little confusing too. Plus, I don't really see the need for a physics accelerator with the upswing of dual-core CPUs set to take over. Why dedicate a PCI card to physics when you have one or more other cores on the die just sitting there?
I just hope Fable 2 breaks the Molyneux curse. His games always have a fantastic premise and are executed quite well, but always have one or two fundamental flaws that are difficult to ignore.
Theme Park was a blast but NPC pathfinding was weak so areas of your park would get trashy and puke-riddin, and guests would get lost behind fences.
Black and White had awesome potential as a "hands-on" (pun intended) god game with a cool creature that developed a unique personality, but the game lost its sandbox appeal in lieu of an average RTS with a counter-intuitive interface for that genre.
Fable (for PC) was very pretty, had great voice acting and tons of personality, but was short and basically a world full of several simplistic minigames.
The Movies was a surprisingly fun tycoon game and making your own movie was really nifty and amusing, but there just weren't enough scene emotes and the post-production editing suite was too bubbly and dumbed-down.
I'll definitely check out Fable 2 but I just can't look forward to Molyneux's games with the same starry-eyed enthusiasm anymore. His games are wonderful the first time around, but unfortunately when you go back for a replay the first thing you notice is the most annoying bug you encountered last time.
Regardless, Molyneux is a risktaker and an innovator and the gaming world has a lot to thank him for. It's tough to do something right the first time around, and many successors have built empires atop his various foundations over the past couple of decades.
The PC version was about 1/3 longer than the Xbox version. I found the PC version to be long enough that I got to develop my character, but short enough that I didn't dread having to play it again with a new character.
My favourite arbitrary unit is pages. "So and so device holds 50,000 pages if data!"
"Boss, I'm currently making only 4 pumpkins per hour, but others with my level of expertise are making as much as 28 medium coffees per hour. I feel a raise of 4 sticks of gum and a bus ticket is more in line with the value of my experience."
I've currently got a socket 754 Athlon 64 3400+ with a GeForce 6600GT. I was planning on upgrading to the AM2 socket with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with a GeForce 7900GT.
I always wondered who plunked down the cash to upgrade hardware constantly. I guess now I know. I still don't get it though.
Obviously you aren't the kind of person who upgrades hardware. Otherwise you'd know that socket 754 is 2 generations old and they only make Duron chips (equivalent of Intel's budget line Celeron) for it now. I've waited over 2 years to upgrade because I need a new motherboard, CPU, memory (DDR2), and video card (PCIe) to upgrade from that old socket.
I've been primed to pounce for quite some time now and it's really exciting to see both of the microprocessor superpowers unleashing such awesome technology at once! In the end I think I'm going to "settle" for an AMD chip since Intel's socket 775 can't have much life left in it. I always try to upgrade with the next 2 or 3 iterations in mind. That's why I'm getting an SLI motherboard with only one card for now - I'll just double up by the time I consider the 7900GT to clunky.
I'm looking at the Asus M2N SLI Deluxe (socket AM2). It has the NForce 570SLI chipset which has nice specs, plus it has a super sexy copper heat pipe spanning the north and south bridges. It's $168 (Canadian) at my local hardware store which is about the lowest price of what you would probably call enthusiast boards.
I don't see justification in spending 40% more on a Fatal1ty brand board. I used to respect his endorsed products until I saw the garbage Creative mouse with his mug on the box.
You're absolutely right to look forward to AMD price drops. I don't care as much about raw power as I do about power per dollar. If the AMD chips drop before the Conroe release then I will gladly get a 4600+ for the price I was willing to pay for a 4200+. AMD benefits from the new Nforce chipset as well which is much more SLI friendly, but my LCD only does 1280x1024 so I don't think SLI will matter much to me for quite some time. I think I'd sooner benefit from the improved speed of Conroe. But can I wait until August???
I just invested in a lovely upgrade and the parts are due to arrive in the store tomorrow. I'm REALLY glad these Conroe reviews came out when they did because I'm going to change my order!
I've currently got a socket 754 Athlon 64 3400+ with a GeForce 6600GT. I was planning on upgrading to the AM2 socket with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with a GeForce 7900GT. I had heard that Intel had some fancy new chip coming out, but benchmarks showed their current 950 series to be a little slower than the AMD's. I figured this was the best Intel had to throw into the ring so I was confident in my AMD purchase. Now I'm going to hold out a week and buy my first Intel chip in about 5 years.
I happen to subscribe to the HardOCP philosophy of appreciating the user experience over raw benchmark scores, but it's hard to ignore the sexy selling points of Conroe. The additional speed is great, the difference in L2 cache is enormous (2x512KB on the 4200+, 2x2MB on some of the Intels), the lower power consumption means I can keep my 380W Antec silent PSU (probably), and the cooler temperatures mean less fans and more headroom for overclocking. Plus Intel features the lower price vs. comparable AMD products; the inverse is why I bought my Athlon XP a few years ago.
Honestly, I thought I had become an AMD fanboy until I saw those benchmarks. I love AMD and their chips have given me nothing but 100% dependable service. However, the same is true of Intel, and I'd kind of forgotten that after so many years. The computing world is privileged to be headed by such fierce and outstanding competitors. I figure I'm still supporting AMD by buying an Intel chip since hopefully it will inspire them to one-up the re-awakening giant once again. I think AMD really needs to shave down to a 65nm process!
Jajah sounds extremely impressive, though it's unfortunate that it requires a landline on both ends. I imagine they use VOIP to bridge PSTN lines local to the recipeint. Smart! I suppose in a way this is even more complex than simple VOIP to PSTN - one fewer degree of separation.
My comment about open source was more of a financial issue, not so much a programming methodology issue. Skype is near the top of most telco's 10 most wanted lists, so I presume they are willing to go that extra mile to provide services smaller companies\projects cannot.
All I'm doing is speculating. Jajah is a great example of a little fish in the shark tank.
If Skype was open source would they have had the leverage to enable free calls within North America until the end of this year? Even if so, is it wise or ethical to make such a powerful technology open source? There is potential for abuse when you open up any technology, but I think the subject gets even touchier when it's a free gateway to technology everyone in the continent uses (PSTN).
There's a zillion PDA games that use the stylus exclusively, and two zillion PC games that only use the mouse. Plus, the DS isn't the only computer to ever have a touch screen.
I'm too dumb to capitalize on this idea so go ahead and rake in my would-be millions, fellow Slashdotters.
3D games look great as-is, but they look even better with antialiasing, right? But AA is a huge tax on the GPU, slowing frame rate considerably.
So why have the GPU do AA at all? Why not put a dedicated antialiasing CPU into monitors? GPUs would push polygons and shaders which is what they do best, and the monitor could use some kind of algorithm to pretty-up textures, reduce jaggy edges, and smooth fonts. It could work in games and on the desktop. Maybe it could scale up a video card running at 800x600 to appear smooth at 1600x1200.
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The voice acting and characterization are really strong in this game, and these elements really help to bring credibility and immersiveness to the experience. In a genre of famously mute protagonists it's really nice to BE such an expressive guy for once.
Play the demo and you'll see what I mean. You'll agree with me 110% when you hear him say "Nasty!" near the beginning!
I don't really know if Intel is much of a competitor in the video card market. Intel graphics adaptors are for people who don't care about video performance. I don't even think you can upgrade from one Intel GPU to another. However, ATI and Nvidia are direct competitors and I'm afraid AMD might do something stupid to nurture their new acquisition - like screw up its currently excellent support for both Radeon and GeForce.
It's also interesting that the new AM2 architecture supports SLI out of the box, but Intel still has no dual core solution for SLI. I thought Nvidia and AMD were buddy buddy. Can AMD go both ways?
Modern CRT televisions don't turn all the way off when you hit the power button. That's because the gas in the cathode ray tube is kept charged so that the device turns on quickly at the flip of the switch. This isn't necessary for TVs to work - it's done so that people don't have to wait so long to start watching.
The /. title is one "do" and a punctuation mark short of being a question.
Yeah, I found this a little confusing too. Plus, I don't really see the need for a physics accelerator with the upswing of dual-core CPUs set to take over. Why dedicate a PCI card to physics when you have one or more other cores on the die just sitting there?
- Theme Park was a blast but NPC pathfinding was weak so areas of your park would get trashy and puke-riddin, and guests would get lost behind fences.
- Black and White had awesome potential as a "hands-on" (pun intended) god game with a cool creature that developed a unique personality, but the game lost its sandbox appeal in lieu of an average RTS with a counter-intuitive interface for that genre.
- Fable (for PC) was very pretty, had great voice acting and tons of personality, but was short and basically a world full of several simplistic minigames.
- The Movies was a surprisingly fun tycoon game and making your own movie was really nifty and amusing, but there just weren't enough scene emotes and the post-production editing suite was too bubbly and dumbed-down.
I'll definitely check out Fable 2 but I just can't look forward to Molyneux's games with the same starry-eyed enthusiasm anymore. His games are wonderful the first time around, but unfortunately when you go back for a replay the first thing you notice is the most annoying bug you encountered last time.Regardless, Molyneux is a risktaker and an innovator and the gaming world has a lot to thank him for. It's tough to do something right the first time around, and many successors have built empires atop his various foundations over the past couple of decades.
The PC version was about 1/3 longer than the Xbox version. I found the PC version to be long enough that I got to develop my character, but short enough that I didn't dread having to play it again with a new character.
My favourite arbitrary unit is pages. "So and so device holds 50,000 pages if data!"
"Boss, I'm currently making only 4 pumpkins per hour, but others with my level of expertise are making as much as 28 medium coffees per hour. I feel a raise of 4 sticks of gum and a bus ticket is more in line with the value of my experience."
I've currently got a socket 754 Athlon 64 3400+ with a GeForce 6600GT. I was planning on upgrading to the AM2 socket with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with a GeForce 7900GT.
I always wondered who plunked down the cash to upgrade hardware constantly. I guess now I know. I still don't get it though.
Obviously you aren't the kind of person who upgrades hardware. Otherwise you'd know that socket 754 is 2 generations old and they only make Duron chips (equivalent of Intel's budget line Celeron) for it now. I've waited over 2 years to upgrade because I need a new motherboard, CPU, memory (DDR2), and video card (PCIe) to upgrade from that old socket.
I've been primed to pounce for quite some time now and it's really exciting to see both of the microprocessor superpowers unleashing such awesome technology at once! In the end I think I'm going to "settle" for an AMD chip since Intel's socket 775 can't have much life left in it. I always try to upgrade with the next 2 or 3 iterations in mind. That's why I'm getting an SLI motherboard with only one card for now - I'll just double up by the time I consider the 7900GT to clunky.
I'm looking at the Asus M2N SLI Deluxe (socket AM2). It has the NForce 570SLI chipset which has nice specs, plus it has a super sexy copper heat pipe spanning the north and south bridges. It's $168 (Canadian) at my local hardware store which is about the lowest price of what you would probably call enthusiast boards.
I don't see justification in spending 40% more on a Fatal1ty brand board. I used to respect his endorsed products until I saw the garbage Creative mouse with his mug on the box.
AnandTech says PC manufacturers may start selling Conroe desktops by next week, while chips will not go on sale for 2 or 3 weeks.
"most of the "reviews" focused on high-end 3D gameplay, which is 99% GPU benchmarking and only slightly affected by the CPU"
If this is true, what I don't understand is why the benchmarks have a greater than 1% difference between Intel and AMD chips.
You're absolutely right to look forward to AMD price drops. I don't care as much about raw power as I do about power per dollar. If the AMD chips drop before the Conroe release then I will gladly get a 4600+ for the price I was willing to pay for a 4200+. AMD benefits from the new Nforce chipset as well which is much more SLI friendly, but my LCD only does 1280x1024 so I don't think SLI will matter much to me for quite some time. I think I'd sooner benefit from the improved speed of Conroe. But can I wait until August???
I just invested in a lovely upgrade and the parts are due to arrive in the store tomorrow. I'm REALLY glad these Conroe reviews came out when they did because I'm going to change my order!
I've currently got a socket 754 Athlon 64 3400+ with a GeForce 6600GT. I was planning on upgrading to the AM2 socket with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with a GeForce 7900GT. I had heard that Intel had some fancy new chip coming out, but benchmarks showed their current 950 series to be a little slower than the AMD's. I figured this was the best Intel had to throw into the ring so I was confident in my AMD purchase. Now I'm going to hold out a week and buy my first Intel chip in about 5 years.
I happen to subscribe to the HardOCP philosophy of appreciating the user experience over raw benchmark scores, but it's hard to ignore the sexy selling points of Conroe. The additional speed is great, the difference in L2 cache is enormous (2x512KB on the 4200+, 2x2MB on some of the Intels), the lower power consumption means I can keep my 380W Antec silent PSU (probably), and the cooler temperatures mean less fans and more headroom for overclocking. Plus Intel features the lower price vs. comparable AMD products; the inverse is why I bought my Athlon XP a few years ago.
Honestly, I thought I had become an AMD fanboy until I saw those benchmarks. I love AMD and their chips have given me nothing but 100% dependable service. However, the same is true of Intel, and I'd kind of forgotten that after so many years. The computing world is privileged to be headed by such fierce and outstanding competitors. I figure I'm still supporting AMD by buying an Intel chip since hopefully it will inspire them to one-up the re-awakening giant once again. I think AMD really needs to shave down to a 65nm process!
That General Tso sure makes some delicious chicken! How's that for starters?
Jajah sounds extremely impressive, though it's unfortunate that it requires a landline on both ends. I imagine they use VOIP to bridge PSTN lines local to the recipeint. Smart! I suppose in a way this is even more complex than simple VOIP to PSTN - one fewer degree of separation.
My comment about open source was more of a financial issue, not so much a programming methodology issue. Skype is near the top of most telco's 10 most wanted lists, so I presume they are willing to go that extra mile to provide services smaller companies\projects cannot.
All I'm doing is speculating. Jajah is a great example of a little fish in the shark tank.
If Skype was open source would they have had the leverage to enable free calls within North America until the end of this year? Even if so, is it wise or ethical to make such a powerful technology open source? There is potential for abuse when you open up any technology, but I think the subject gets even touchier when it's a free gateway to technology everyone in the continent uses (PSTN).
Thanks for sharing your generalizations about the most populous country in the world. Obviously every aspect of China meets your concise description.
There's a zillion PDA games that use the stylus exclusively, and two zillion PC games that only use the mouse. Plus, the DS isn't the only computer to ever have a touch screen.
MS could make a great portable media player that incidentally plays games if they gave the device a touch screen.
You're right. It would make the most sense to take my proposed monitor AA CPU and just stick it on the video card.
Funny, I was going to suggest ZSNES as an argument FOR my idea. Super Mario World looks GORGEOUS with 3xMAME shading.
I'm too dumb to capitalize on this idea so go ahead and rake in my would-be millions, fellow Slashdotters.
3D games look great as-is, but they look even better with antialiasing, right? But AA is a huge tax on the GPU, slowing frame rate considerably.
So why have the GPU do AA at all? Why not put a dedicated antialiasing CPU into monitors? GPUs would push polygons and shaders which is what they do best, and the monitor could use some kind of algorithm to pretty-up textures, reduce jaggy edges, and smooth fonts. It could work in games and on the desktop. Maybe it could scale up a video card running at 800x600 to appear smooth at 1600x1200.
What say you all? Feasible?
And for some intellectual hip hop with a philisophical bent, check out pretty much anything with vocals on the Ninja Tune label.