The biggest problem with playing games at 1600x1200 or above is the hardware costs to get a good framerate out of said games. I could probabaly buy all three consoles for the cost of the upgrades to play such games on my PC. Playing at 720p/1080p is good enough for me.
Ont he mod side, that is indeed what kept me playing pc games for so long. I was thrilled when sony allowed mods on the ps3, and UT3 made use of them. Its as simple as downloading the mod to a usb stick and importing it on your ps3. Really hoping they find a way to do it without a PC though. They also let you use a mouse and keyboard, which is awesome. Saved me a ton of PC upgrade money.
Actualy, early Wii FPS games aimed very much like your average rail shooter. Basically, to turn you had to bring your redicle to the edge of the screen's bound box. Metriod still has to do that, they just made that box really, really small.
If you think guys are seeing the same stereotype of our gender as the girls are of theirs, your not looking at the games themselves. Guys are always these large, muscled, fearless guys who can carve though an army without breaking a sweat.
It has gotten better in recent years though, and there have been notible exceptions. Take the recent ps3 game Uncharted. The male lead is very much an everyman, not too muscled, looks and acts like he's in over his head alot of times. The female lead is a small breasted woman in capri pants and a layed tanktop. I was actualy thankful for this, as it was nice to have hero's in an action game you could actualy relate to.
Controlling with the analog sticks in indeed something of an annoyance, but its not a game ender if done right. Autoaim can be just as bad at time. A happy medium between the two often works well though.
Of course, you could also pull a Sony and just let the developers code for keyboard/mouse support, like they allowed with the ps2 and ps3. It seems alot of developers aren't making use of that functionality for some reason, beyond UT3's use of it. Why? No idea.
I think most of us can see the difference between abusing the system so you can sue people for millions for vilolation, and abuseing the system to show just how broken it is. I doubt very seriously Drew woudl ever sue anyone over this trademark. It would, if granted, mearly be proof that the system is busted, and needs to be modernized.
Remakes cost a ton of money and time to develop. Ports, on the other hand, are cheeper, and as Nntendo has shown us, people will buy a port of the same game to a dozen different platforms if it's offered. Just look at how many times they ported the mario games.
The sad part is, there are games i'd kill to see remade. I remember once shouting in joy when Square said they were going to do a ps2 remake of Parasite Eve, but sadly, it never happened. I'd still kill to see it, as PE had a select few flaws that kept it from being a true legend.
Most of the multiplayer ps3 games I know of all support local play with 2-4 players as well. Only Motorstorm doesn't, which alot of people thought was odd. Even the online only game warhawk supported 4 player local online play, something that was actually pretty fun.
While the fanboys are usualy idiots, there is quite a bit of Anti-Sony bias going around. Take, for example, when sony revised the specs and didn't put out new numbers. People screamed about this for months. Yet Nintendo never released specs for the wii, but no one seemed to care. People constaintly complain sony has no games, and the wii has tons, but when you look at metacritic, sony's got like 37 games rated higher than 80 compaired to nintendo's 14. To be fair, MS seems to be holding pretty well, despite their massive hardware issue. Games and feature wise they are delivoring pretty well so far.
Nintendo only makes videogames? Dude, they also make killer money from licenseing francises like mario, pokemon, zelda, etc out to movie, tv, and comic companies. Combine that with their cheep hardware and them farming out some of their francises to 2nd parties, and its a recipie for cash.
The thing nintendo did was somehow sell you a $250 controller. even then, the wiimote has some series drawbacks that are glossed over. Gamewise, besides about 5 titles, everything else is pretty below average. Even wiiplay and wiisports are little more than tech demos that other companies would be blasted for putting out. No other company could put out the product that Nintendo did and get away with it.
IF there is one thing about this game, its the shear mass of background info they provide. I think I annoy my roommates when i'll spend an hour just looking for codex entries, talking to random people, and doing seemingly random quests just to get information. The Heat thing was a nice touch, as i'd never considered that as a problem for space combat.
Wouldn't bother nintendo, they would just criple the game abilities to save powerm just like they did with the original gameboy. If they made a gaming phone, it would proabably have just enough features to qualify as a gameing device and phone, and nothing else. Nintendo makes it's money by delivoring less in a more stylish or hyped up package. The DS was their first effort in a long time at adding something new tech wise (the VB was just two gabeboy screens, really), and even then the DS is just a GBA crossed with a game.com.
The problem with nintendo is well, they have been declining in quility in some area for years now, and they rarely ship more than a single game in a core francise a generation if its done 1st party. Two is generaly the max you see, and even thats rare. Zelda and Metroid had two each, but Metroid wasn't 1st party, and Zelda was a port split between two systems. Quility wise, alof of their games last generation, and imho, this generation have had some major downsides. WW was rushed, and boring, TP lacked the series signature miniquests, Double Dash has average, lacking the fun battles the previous games had. Metriod prime was amazing, prime two was more average. Sunhine was near universaly bashed, and Luigi's mansion was forgetable. Most everything else they shiped was easily forgotten, or just a mini-game collection or mario branded sports title.
On the wii, we see the same thing. Galaxy is great, as is Metriod, but we aren't likely to see more of those series for a long time. Paper mario was a disapointment, Zelda nearly hit the mark, but its half-asses motion controls hurt it. Wii sports, for all its hype, hardly quilifies as a game at all, and I firmly consider it nothing more than a playable tech demo. Nothing else has really come out yet thats worth half a damn. Nintendo just can't put out enough quility games to keep people playing beyond the initial wow you get from the console. After that, the novelty wears off, and your left with a doorstop.
So why does it sell? Its all about hype, and hooking people with the initial novelty.
At the time, CoD reset the bar for a story and environmental feeling in a ww2 game. Before then, it was all Metal Of Honor style, where the only story was what was in the pre-stage briefing. CoD, however, told you most of the story as you played, and made you feel like a solder, and not like a guy playing a solder.
When your not in the middle east, your fighting a group of ultra-nationalist russian rebels, who are pretty well equpt and fight viciously. In the times where WMD come into play, its ether an act of spite or revenge, and not really terrorism. I really enjoyed how they purposesly avoided using terrorists as a villian, as thats become something of a cliche.
Bingo. CoD4 has some of the best firefights for an FPS ever. Bullets zip all around you, and even though your cover if your behind something thin. Grenades rain down on you at times, giving you a great "oh shi!!!" moment as you scramble to throw it back. Probabaly the first really good example of this is the news station stage. ITs pure chaos, but damn is it fun. To cool you down from this are several more silent missions, where the goal is often to sneak by or take out silently anyone you can, and to pick your targets wisely. The ultimate example of that stage was the first part of the sniper misison, where you maby have to shoot 2 people to clear it, if your careful about who you avoid.
Being able to play a game versus being able to play it to it's fullest is the key. IF you want to play a game, the requirements are prtty average most cases. If you want to match those pre-release screenshots at 30-60 fps, then you need that $400 videocard, and mabey a new processor and Ram. And every 2-3 years, you get to do it all over again. On the flip side, a console is usualy godo for 5 years or so, plays everything to it's max, and gets cheeper to buy into as the generation moves on, while you can still enjoy newer titles.
NPD numbers had become a weekly thing for gamers, and quite a bit of commentary was put into each weeks numbers. It was neat to see the effects of a major title, marketing push, price cut, etc, in real sales numbers.
In Ninetndo's case, there is no backwards compatable way to play them, and many have been out of print for 15-20 years, making them difficult to find. On the ps3, so far all the playstation classic titles I can think of that are downloadable are ps1 titles, which at this point are abou a decade old themselves, and equally hard to find. What they need is to get more of the ps1 titles out that command those huge ebay prices, like Tobal, Klonoa, Einhander, etc. Also toss in some of the forgotten classics like threads of fate, Parasite eve, Fear Effect, R4, etc.
Main question I have on my mind for the xbox titles is since those were DVD games, won't size be an issue? Most xbox's only have 20 gigs of space, so thats what, 3-4 dvd games?
Re 4 was good, but if you already played and beat it on the cube or ps2, its just the same game with mouselook and waggle. Metroid is grand, and Galaxy (despite me not being wowed by the gamestop demo) is suppose to be pretty amazing.
As to why he bought a wii? Probabaly same reason I did: It was hyped up as the be all end all savior of gaming. It was suppose to be the biggest thing since videogames first hit, but really, all it was is the same old stuff with mouselook and waggle, and a handful of neat game that don't really take advantage of the console for the most part. I'll pick one up again in a few years, but honestly, its cube 2.0 to me, with all the same short commings.
I don't think there was ever a ban of blu-ray porn, just no one wanted to make it as filming porn in HD was expensive, and face it, you don't want 1080p man-butt on your 40 inch screen. Toss in how the internet killed the porn video industry, and it just wasn't a high priority for the pron companies.
Ah, the ps1 launched at $299, which isn't a third of $499/599 if my math is right. Also, FF7 wasn't a launch game. Launch games were twisted metal, warhawk, battle arena toshinden, and ridge racer, along with a few others. N64 had Mario 64, but that was literaly it so far as killer titles for a long time. I do agree that kilelr aps at launch are pretty rare this gen, but i'd put Halo as the last killer launch exclusive title, rather than SC. Twilight Princess would have gotten it, but its not an exclusive.
Rachet and Clank 1 was one of the first games for the ps2 that showed what the platform could truly do. Before then, people spouted that the ps2 was crap, the DC far superior, etc.
After it, and Jak 1, they shut up. Not only was the gameplay solid, but grpahically it was a dream. One of the first major hits for the console as well.
Tools is in the same boat really. It's one of the best, if not the best, looking and playing games on the console right now. Everything it does it does well, even the sixaxis support was better than anything i'd yet seen on the console. The review is a bit off when it says one of the first games to have achivement though. Resistance had them, and it was a launch game. What Rachet is a first on is Dual Shock 3 support, and I beleave they stated the skill points will transfer to Home's achivementments when the time comes.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest problem with playing games at 1600x1200 or above is the hardware costs to get a good framerate out of said games. I could probabaly buy all three consoles for the cost of the upgrades to play such games on my PC. Playing at 720p/1080p is good enough for me.
Ont he mod side, that is indeed what kept me playing pc games for so long. I was thrilled when sony allowed mods on the ps3, and UT3 made use of them. Its as simple as downloading the mod to a usb stick and importing it on your ps3. Really hoping they find a way to do it without a PC though. They also let you use a mouse and keyboard, which is awesome. Saved me a ton of PC upgrade money.
Actualy, early Wii FPS games aimed very much like your average rail shooter. Basically, to turn you had to bring your redicle to the edge of the screen's bound box. Metriod still has to do that, they just made that box really, really small.
If you think guys are seeing the same stereotype of our gender as the girls are of theirs, your not looking at the games themselves. Guys are always these large, muscled, fearless guys who can carve though an army without breaking a sweat.
It has gotten better in recent years though, and there have been notible exceptions. Take the recent ps3 game Uncharted. The male lead is very much an everyman, not too muscled, looks and acts like he's in over his head alot of times. The female lead is a small breasted woman in capri pants and a layed tanktop. I was actualy thankful for this, as it was nice to have hero's in an action game you could actualy relate to.
Controlling with the analog sticks in indeed something of an annoyance, but its not a game ender if done right. Autoaim can be just as bad at time. A happy medium between the two often works well though.
Of course, you could also pull a Sony and just let the developers code for keyboard/mouse support, like they allowed with the ps2 and ps3. It seems alot of developers aren't making use of that functionality for some reason, beyond UT3's use of it. Why? No idea.
I think most of us can see the difference between abusing the system so you can sue people for millions for vilolation, and abuseing the system to show just how broken it is. I doubt very seriously Drew woudl ever sue anyone over this trademark. It would, if granted, mearly be proof that the system is busted, and needs to be modernized.
Patent to be rejected on the fact that there are no ideas or thoughts on the internet, just mp3's, ranting, and porn.
Remakes cost a ton of money and time to develop. Ports, on the other hand, are cheeper, and as Nntendo has shown us, people will buy a port of the same game to a dozen different platforms if it's offered. Just look at how many times they ported the mario games.
The sad part is, there are games i'd kill to see remade. I remember once shouting in joy when Square said they were going to do a ps2 remake of Parasite Eve, but sadly, it never happened. I'd still kill to see it, as PE had a select few flaws that kept it from being a true legend.
Most of the multiplayer ps3 games I know of all support local play with 2-4 players as well. Only Motorstorm doesn't, which alot of people thought was odd. Even the online only game warhawk supported 4 player local online play, something that was actually pretty fun.
While the fanboys are usualy idiots, there is quite a bit of Anti-Sony bias going around. Take, for example, when sony revised the specs and didn't put out new numbers. People screamed about this for months. Yet Nintendo never released specs for the wii, but no one seemed to care. People constaintly complain sony has no games, and the wii has tons, but when you look at metacritic, sony's got like 37 games rated higher than 80 compaired to nintendo's 14. To be fair, MS seems to be holding pretty well, despite their massive hardware issue. Games and feature wise they are delivoring pretty well so far.
Nintendo only makes videogames? Dude, they also make killer money from licenseing francises like mario, pokemon, zelda, etc out to movie, tv, and comic companies. Combine that with their cheep hardware and them farming out some of their francises to 2nd parties, and its a recipie for cash.
The thing nintendo did was somehow sell you a $250 controller. even then, the wiimote has some series drawbacks that are glossed over. Gamewise, besides about 5 titles, everything else is pretty below average. Even wiiplay and wiisports are little more than tech demos that other companies would be blasted for putting out. No other company could put out the product that Nintendo did and get away with it.
IF there is one thing about this game, its the shear mass of background info they provide. I think I annoy my roommates when i'll spend an hour just looking for codex entries, talking to random people, and doing seemingly random quests just to get information. The Heat thing was a nice touch, as i'd never considered that as a problem for space combat.
Wouldn't bother nintendo, they would just criple the game abilities to save powerm just like they did with the original gameboy. If they made a gaming phone, it would proabably have just enough features to qualify as a gameing device and phone, and nothing else. Nintendo makes it's money by delivoring less in a more stylish or hyped up package. The DS was their first effort in a long time at adding something new tech wise (the VB was just two gabeboy screens, really), and even then the DS is just a GBA crossed with a game.com.
The problem with nintendo is well, they have been declining in quility in some area for years now, and they rarely ship more than a single game in a core francise a generation if its done 1st party. Two is generaly the max you see, and even thats rare. Zelda and Metroid had two each, but Metroid wasn't 1st party, and Zelda was a port split between two systems. Quility wise, alof of their games last generation, and imho, this generation have had some major downsides. WW was rushed, and boring, TP lacked the series signature miniquests, Double Dash has average, lacking the fun battles the previous games had. Metriod prime was amazing, prime two was more average. Sunhine was near universaly bashed, and Luigi's mansion was forgetable. Most everything else they shiped was easily forgotten, or just a mini-game collection or mario branded sports title.
On the wii, we see the same thing. Galaxy is great, as is Metriod, but we aren't likely to see more of those series for a long time. Paper mario was a disapointment, Zelda nearly hit the mark, but its half-asses motion controls hurt it. Wii sports, for all its hype, hardly quilifies as a game at all, and I firmly consider it nothing more than a playable tech demo. Nothing else has really come out yet thats worth half a damn. Nintendo just can't put out enough quility games to keep people playing beyond the initial wow you get from the console. After that, the novelty wears off, and your left with a doorstop.
So why does it sell? Its all about hype, and hooking people with the initial novelty.
At the time, CoD reset the bar for a story and environmental feeling in a ww2 game. Before then, it was all Metal Of Honor style, where the only story was what was in the pre-stage briefing. CoD, however, told you most of the story as you played, and made you feel like a solder, and not like a guy playing a solder.
When your not in the middle east, your fighting a group of ultra-nationalist russian rebels, who are pretty well equpt and fight viciously. In the times where WMD come into play, its ether an act of spite or revenge, and not really terrorism. I really enjoyed how they purposesly avoided using terrorists as a villian, as thats become something of a cliche.
Bingo. CoD4 has some of the best firefights for an FPS ever. Bullets zip all around you, and even though your cover if your behind something thin. Grenades rain down on you at times, giving you a great "oh shi!!!" moment as you scramble to throw it back. Probabaly the first really good example of this is the news station stage. ITs pure chaos, but damn is it fun. To cool you down from this are several more silent missions, where the goal is often to sneak by or take out silently anyone you can, and to pick your targets wisely. The ultimate example of that stage was the first part of the sniper misison, where you maby have to shoot 2 people to clear it, if your careful about who you avoid.
Being able to play a game versus being able to play it to it's fullest is the key. IF you want to play a game, the requirements are prtty average most cases. If you want to match those pre-release screenshots at 30-60 fps, then you need that $400 videocard, and mabey a new processor and Ram. And every 2-3 years, you get to do it all over again. On the flip side, a console is usualy godo for 5 years or so, plays everything to it's max, and gets cheeper to buy into as the generation moves on, while you can still enjoy newer titles.
NPD numbers had become a weekly thing for gamers, and quite a bit of commentary was put into each weeks numbers. It was neat to see the effects of a major title, marketing push, price cut, etc, in real sales numbers.
In Ninetndo's case, there is no backwards compatable way to play them, and many have been out of print for 15-20 years, making them difficult to find. On the ps3, so far all the playstation classic titles I can think of that are downloadable are ps1 titles, which at this point are abou a decade old themselves, and equally hard to find. What they need is to get more of the ps1 titles out that command those huge ebay prices, like Tobal, Klonoa, Einhander, etc. Also toss in some of the forgotten classics like threads of fate, Parasite eve, Fear Effect, R4, etc.
Main question I have on my mind for the xbox titles is since those were DVD games, won't size be an issue? Most xbox's only have 20 gigs of space, so thats what, 3-4 dvd games?
Re 4 was good, but if you already played and beat it on the cube or ps2, its just the same game with mouselook and waggle. Metroid is grand, and Galaxy (despite me not being wowed by the gamestop demo) is suppose to be pretty amazing.
As to why he bought a wii? Probabaly same reason I did: It was hyped up as the be all end all savior of gaming. It was suppose to be the biggest thing since videogames first hit, but really, all it was is the same old stuff with mouselook and waggle, and a handful of neat game that don't really take advantage of the console for the most part. I'll pick one up again in a few years, but honestly, its cube 2.0 to me, with all the same short commings.
I don't think there was ever a ban of blu-ray porn, just no one wanted to make it as filming porn in HD was expensive, and face it, you don't want 1080p man-butt on your 40 inch screen. Toss in how the internet killed the porn video industry, and it just wasn't a high priority for the pron companies.
Ah, the ps1 launched at $299, which isn't a third of $499/599 if my math is right. Also, FF7 wasn't a launch game. Launch games were twisted metal, warhawk, battle arena toshinden, and ridge racer, along with a few others. N64 had Mario 64, but that was literaly it so far as killer titles for a long time. I do agree that kilelr aps at launch are pretty rare this gen, but i'd put Halo as the last killer launch exclusive title, rather than SC. Twilight Princess would have gotten it, but its not an exclusive.
After it, and Jak 1, they shut up. Not only was the gameplay solid, but grpahically it was a dream. One of the first major hits for the console as well.
Tools is in the same boat really. It's one of the best, if not the best, looking and playing games on the console right now. Everything it does it does well, even the sixaxis support was better than anything i'd yet seen on the console. The review is a bit off when it says one of the first games to have achivement though. Resistance had them, and it was a launch game. What Rachet is a first on is Dual Shock 3 support, and I beleave they stated the skill points will transfer to Home's achivementments when the time comes.
Indeed. Aperently, terrorists can't eat anything but native dishes. This whole thing is so very, very stupid.