I frequently use my GameBoy Advance when my wife and kids are using all the TV's in the house. It will be nice to have a GTA I can play in such situations. Its going to be released at the same time as GTA: San Andreas though so I've informed my wife I may be incommunicado for a few days at the end of October:)
Then why are all of the XBox and PC users complaining loudly on every GTA: San Andreas board on the web about having to wait for a port? I mean after all -- its just a crappy PS2 game right:)
I don't know why you were modded "insightful" for your angry one-liner but hey, stranger things have happened on slashdot before.
As long as we are modding things like this "insightful" today I'd counter that we also need a +x rude atheist mod option so that the rest of us can avoid reading your posts.
I dunno about the rest of you but regardless of how well done and user friendly the "you just died" functionality was, if I failed a mission, I bloody well loaded up my last save point to maintain my previous stats and inventory. I'm willing to bet just about everyone else did this too.
I have to admit that for the first half of my play through Vice City I did exactly that -- reloaded any time I died. The main reason I did this was because it took longer for me to get new weapons than it did to reload.
However, after playing for a while I gradually began to realize that there are weapons and cash everywhere. It was actually more fun to continue playing rather than reload. Sure, I no longer have a zero deaths count, but I don't have to look at a loading screen anymore either.
Later in the game you have so much money that its fairly pointless to reload. Once you have a few million you can just head on over to the store on your way to the mission and buy anything you want.
My favorite way to get money in the game is to stand behind the wall near the sidewalk outside the Northpoint Mall and snipe people until I get six stars and the tanks start rolling. Turns out if you are behind the wall the cops can't hit you and they are too stupid to just walk around the wall. You can snipe the driver of a tank through the very tiny window in front of the tank. Then you walk around the wall, grab a tank, and park it in your garage.
I think everyone here should remember that you need to actually read the article and not go by the one paragraph blurb on slashdot as its almost always sensationalist to the point of insulting our intelligence. This slashdot "story" is no different. Do yourself a favor and download the court opinion and read it for yourself. The three page summary at the start is good enough so don't be scared by the document's length.
If after reading the opinion you still think the court is wrong then by all means post and say so. However, I think most people (myself included) will see why the court decided the way it did and not get nearly as excited as the submitter of this "story" wants us to be.
Let me start off this post by saying that I own or have owned every Nintendo console, a GameBoy Advance and SP, a Sega Genesis, and the Playstation 1 and 2. I don't have an X-Box not for technical reasons but because I swore off all Microsoft products long ago and am living a happy life without paying them one dime. If it weren't a Microsoft product then I'd own one. I own hundreds of games.
I plan on buying a Playstation 3. I won't buy Nintendo's next console unless they pull off a miracle as I've been burned by them too often in the past. I may buy the Nintendo DS but I'm waiting to see what the games are like when it comes out. I won't get the PSP because its going to be overpriced and have no battery life (feel free to disagree on that point -- I'll just say I told you so when it launches.) I won't buy the next X-Box for the reason listed above.
Why am I going with the Playstation 3? Simple. The Playstation library is the largest library around, the machines are backwards compatible, and if you wait long enough almost everything is ported to it anyway. The few X-Box and Nintendo exclusive titles worth playing I'll just live without. I have more fun playing with my kids anyway.
I'm going to lose some karma on this one but somone has to respond to this silliness.
A suburb-born CPA who kills a police officer gets executed.
A ghetto-born man who ruins the retirements of thousands of families gets a slap on the wrist.
The problem isn't one of race or money. The problem is that sentences don't match the crime. Your initial statement was correct but your example brings elements into the situation that merely cloud the actual point.
I finally left college in August 2000 with a BS in Computer Science from a southern state school. Took a bit longer than 4 years but that's only because I skipped a lot of class to play pool at the local bar (and changed majors three times). My work experience up to that point had consisted mainly of grocery store and pizza delivery jobs.
I put my resume up on a few internet job sites and waited. I didn't call anyone. Calls started coming in about a month later but most of them were startup consulting firms (stock market bubble hadn't burst yet). I didn't want a job like that with a wife and baby to support.
Eventually a defense company called (by accident as they misread my resume) but decided to pull me in for an interview anyway after the phone screen. The day after I got back from the interview Fedex delivered my job offer. I started at a wee bit over $24 per hour (which happened to be exactly what I asked for). I have a 40 hour week and never work overtime unless I want to.
I'm in New Jersey though which isn't exactly the cheapest of states to live in. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what to look for. Just remember to factor in the cost of living for the area when determing your asking salary. Also don't forget to consider the benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, pension, insurance, etc.)
The lesson is clear: stay out of movie theaters and you won't get arrested.
That has to be the dumbest statement I've seen yet regarding the illegal copying of someone else's work.
Maybe I'm in the minority here but its not like this 34 year old person didn't know he shouldn't bring a video camera into a theater and record a movie. Sure the penalty may be a bit stiff in this case but something is needed to send a message to people that you can't just go around filming movies from your seat in the movie theater.
And no, the lesson here isn't that you should stay out of a movie theater, its that you should leave your camera at home!
Most games from Japanese game companies release in Japan first. The American divisions of Sony and Nintendo decide whether or not they want them in America. So, its hard to get super excited about a hot new Japanese game when you aren't even sure if Sony or Nintendo will bother to bring it over here. Then even if they do bring it over its a months long wait (if not longer).
Maybe things work better in the opposite direction. I don't really have any insight into this as there aren't that many _good_ games that release in the US before Japan.
Not only are they convincing some poor clueless ebay user to cart off their junk for them but they are getting said clueless ebay user to actually pay for the privilege.
As the parent of a child with so many allergies that her allergy doctor is frequently amazed, I can sympathize with the families in question. Everyone wants their kids to be safe, especially if they have rare conditions. However, this lawsuit is stupid.
There is only so much you can expect a company to do for such a small percentage of the population. For example, I expect food companies to properly label their products with ALL ingredients, to have 800 numbers to call if this isn't possible given the size of the package, and to warn about possible contaminants from other products manufactured at the same facility. This is a reasonable expectation that imposes no undue burdon on the company. I certainly don't expect them stop making the products my kid is alergic to or to include so many warnings in bold print across their logo that people stop using the product. That's just silly. The relevant information in small print on the back of the package is more than sufficient.
Nor do I expect other kids to have to stop eating foods my child can't have. I'd appreciate it if they washed their hands every now and then but I'm certainly not going to sue them for eating a PB&J.
Parents need to do their job, watch their children, and stop expecting the rest of the world to do this for them. Kids have parents for a reason. If the courts are in any way just then Nintendo will win this case.
I think MMORPG's should adopt the standard MUD design where you die with minimal stat impact (maybe some XP loss) but come back naked. Having to run back into a nasty area to retreive stuff from your corpse was the single biggest reason why everyone played carefully and tried not to die. Contrast this with the PS2 Everquest game. No one cares the least little bit about dying. The XP debt is too small to be significant and after you can coach everywhere the walking time back to the area isn't significant either.
You could solve the PvP situation using the standard MUD method as well. You have to be in a guild that is marked as PvP before you can kill other players or be killed by them. This way the people who want PvP can have it and the other people who want to play in peace can do so.
Why don't MMORPG's do this?
Arch is crap. Only people who have never used it or the 3 brain dead people who try to use it claim its any good. Feel free to download the source yourself if you doubt my words.
This is so clever its almost evil. What do you do when not enough people are upgrading from 2000 to XP? Simple. Stage a "leak" of parts of the source you don't really care if people have. Act like this code is uber-secret and its release will make 2000 far too insecure to run. Not only does this encourage people who wouldn't upgrade to upgrade but it also lets you continue the "open source is evil" campaign with an actual example. Gotta love Microsoft.
If you think Sega lost the console wars because of some chinese mod chips then your an even bigger idiot than your ALL CAPS sentences make you out to be.
... is thousands of years old.
Unfortunately, no one can be told how awesome Go is. You have to experience it for yourself. And it requires patience (which is why it hasn't taken off in the US:)
GameFly is a good service. I'd still be with them if they had a distribution center on the east coast. But they don't which means a week turnaround time. Even if you only play the games for one day and return them you are still worse off than renting locally.
Having said that, if they open an east coast distribution center then I'll sign back up in a heartbeat.
Slashdot Mirror
I frequently use my GameBoy Advance when my wife and kids are using all the TV's in the house. It will be nice to have a GTA I can play in such situations. Its going to be released at the same time as GTA: San Andreas though so I've informed my wife I may be incommunicado for a few days at the end of October :)
Then why are all of the XBox and PC users complaining loudly on every GTA: San Andreas board on the web about having to wait for a port? I mean after all -- its just a crappy PS2 game right :)
As long as we are modding things like this "insightful" today I'd counter that we also need a +x rude atheist mod option so that the rest of us can avoid reading your posts.
I have to admit that for the first half of my play through Vice City I did exactly that -- reloaded any time I died. The main reason I did this was because it took longer for me to get new weapons than it did to reload.
However, after playing for a while I gradually began to realize that there are weapons and cash everywhere. It was actually more fun to continue playing rather than reload. Sure, I no longer have a zero deaths count, but I don't have to look at a loading screen anymore either.
Later in the game you have so much money that its fairly pointless to reload. Once you have a few million you can just head on over to the store on your way to the mission and buy anything you want.
My favorite way to get money in the game is to stand behind the wall near the sidewalk outside the Northpoint Mall and snipe people until I get six stars and the tanks start rolling. Turns out if you are behind the wall the cops can't hit you and they are too stupid to just walk around the wall. You can snipe the driver of a tank through the very tiny window in front of the tank. Then you walk around the wall, grab a tank, and park it in your garage.
Vigilante missions in a tank = easy money.
If after reading the opinion you still think the court is wrong then by all means post and say so. However, I think most people (myself included) will see why the court decided the way it did and not get nearly as excited as the submitter of this "story" wants us to be.
I plan on buying a Playstation 3. I won't buy Nintendo's next console unless they pull off a miracle as I've been burned by them too often in the past. I may buy the Nintendo DS but I'm waiting to see what the games are like when it comes out. I won't get the PSP because its going to be overpriced and have no battery life (feel free to disagree on that point -- I'll just say I told you so when it launches.) I won't buy the next X-Box for the reason listed above.
Why am I going with the Playstation 3? Simple. The Playstation library is the largest library around, the machines are backwards compatible, and if you wait long enough almost everything is ported to it anyway. The few X-Box and Nintendo exclusive titles worth playing I'll just live without. I have more fun playing with my kids anyway.
A suburb-born CPA who kills a police officer gets executed.
A ghetto-born man who ruins the retirements of thousands of families gets a slap on the wrist.
The problem isn't one of race or money. The problem is that sentences don't match the crime. Your initial statement was correct but your example brings elements into the situation that merely cloud the actual point.
I put my resume up on a few internet job sites and waited. I didn't call anyone. Calls started coming in about a month later but most of them were startup consulting firms (stock market bubble hadn't burst yet). I didn't want a job like that with a wife and baby to support.
Eventually a defense company called (by accident as they misread my resume) but decided to pull me in for an interview anyway after the phone screen. The day after I got back from the interview Fedex delivered my job offer. I started at a wee bit over $24 per hour (which happened to be exactly what I asked for). I have a 40 hour week and never work overtime unless I want to.
I'm in New Jersey though which isn't exactly the cheapest of states to live in. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what to look for. Just remember to factor in the cost of living for the area when determing your asking salary. Also don't forget to consider the benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, pension, insurance, etc.)
That has to be the dumbest statement I've seen yet regarding the illegal copying of someone else's work.
Maybe I'm in the minority here but its not like this 34 year old person didn't know he shouldn't bring a video camera into a theater and record a movie. Sure the penalty may be a bit stiff in this case but something is needed to send a message to people that you can't just go around filming movies from your seat in the movie theater.
And no, the lesson here isn't that you should stay out of a movie theater, its that you should leave your camera at home!
sheesh!
Maybe things work better in the opposite direction. I don't really have any insight into this as there aren't that many _good_ games that release in the US before Japan.
Amazing.
There is only so much you can expect a company to do for such a small percentage of the population. For example, I expect food companies to properly label their products with ALL ingredients, to have 800 numbers to call if this isn't possible given the size of the package, and to warn about possible contaminants from other products manufactured at the same facility. This is a reasonable expectation that imposes no undue burdon on the company. I certainly don't expect them stop making the products my kid is alergic to or to include so many warnings in bold print across their logo that people stop using the product. That's just silly. The relevant information in small print on the back of the package is more than sufficient.
Nor do I expect other kids to have to stop eating foods my child can't have. I'd appreciate it if they washed their hands every now and then but I'm certainly not going to sue them for eating a PB&J.
Parents need to do their job, watch their children, and stop expecting the rest of the world to do this for them. Kids have parents for a reason. If the courts are in any way just then Nintendo will win this case.
I think MMORPG's should adopt the standard MUD design where you die with minimal stat impact (maybe some XP loss) but come back naked. Having to run back into a nasty area to retreive stuff from your corpse was the single biggest reason why everyone played carefully and tried not to die. Contrast this with the PS2 Everquest game. No one cares the least little bit about dying. The XP debt is too small to be significant and after you can coach everywhere the walking time back to the area isn't significant either. You could solve the PvP situation using the standard MUD method as well. You have to be in a guild that is marked as PvP before you can kill other players or be killed by them. This way the people who want PvP can have it and the other people who want to play in peace can do so. Why don't MMORPG's do this?
Try posting as someone other than an anonymous coward.
Arch is crap. Only people who have never used it or the 3 brain dead people who try to use it claim its any good. Feel free to download the source yourself if you doubt my words.
This is so clever its almost evil. What do you do when not enough people are upgrading from 2000 to XP? Simple. Stage a "leak" of parts of the source you don't really care if people have. Act like this code is uber-secret and its release will make 2000 far too insecure to run. Not only does this encourage people who wouldn't upgrade to upgrade but it also lets you continue the "open source is evil" campaign with an actual example. Gotta love Microsoft.
You are correct. What a sad commentary on the state our society is in.
If you think Sega lost the console wars because of some chinese mod chips then your an even bigger idiot than your ALL CAPS sentences make you out to be.
... is thousands of years old. Unfortunately, no one can be told how awesome Go is. You have to experience it for yourself. And it requires patience (which is why it hasn't taken off in the US :)
GameFly is a good service. I'd still be with them if they had a distribution center on the east coast. But they don't which means a week turnaround time. Even if you only play the games for one day and return them you are still worse off than renting locally. Having said that, if they open an east coast distribution center then I'll sign back up in a heartbeat.