Madden sold just fine this year. Unfortunately for EA, it probably didn't sell well enough to make up for the wad of cash they paid the NFL for an exclusive license. Given that the NFL LOVES exclusive licensing, I imagine the NFL told EA that if they didn't pay for the exclusive, they'd sell exclusive rights to someone else.
Disney has had their moments. Tron was a Disney tie-in and quite possibly the best movie tie-in ever. Also, the Magical Kingdom game on the SNES was a cut above most of the generic side scrollers. Can't figure out why that's not the engine they used in their later games. Disney also has a Mario Kart type game on the DC that I'm not fond of but my wife prefers over any of the Mario Karts she's played (which I think is all of them but the new DS one).
You also forgot Logic Problems and those magazines that have the assortment of puzzles. I go through a lot of those.
There's also a game I used to play as a kid on pen and paper. The way it worked was that each person had three battleships drawn out on a base on an edge of the paper. There were islands in the middle. On each persons turn, they could opt to move one battleship 5 spaces or move one battleship 3 spaces and then shoot at an enemy ship. The spaces were just dashes on the paper and shooting involved placing the tip of your finger on the eraser of the pencil and pushing down. This caused the pencil to shoot out a semi-random line representing your torpedo. If your torpedo hit another player's ship before it hits land, that player's ship is destroyed. The last person to have an unsunken ship is the winner.
I have a disability that prevents me from enjoying the new SWG system. If you could just change it back to the old system then people with the same disability as I have (dontlikecrapism) would be much better accomodated.
I think I know why people are claiming that PC Gaming is dying. The old stongholds of PC game sales are constantly reducing shelf space for PC games in order to accomodate console games. Anyone remember back when Software Etc was a computer store with a small console game section (that usually only included fringe software line Lynx and SMS carts)? Now it's a console store with a shelf devoted to PC gaming. PC games are getting less shelf space in environments they used to own. That doesn't mean PC gaming is dying. It just means lots of advertising and massive amounts of shelf space aren't necessary to entice PC gamers. That one shelf of PC games that's left now at EB has about as many games as EB has ever had for the PC, only in a smaller footprint.
I do hope that whatever Google does about displaying logos, images, etc, they do not sacrifice the decent speed the search engine has right now. I'd hate for Google to turn into another site that has good information but that stupid image from doubleclick has to load before you can see any of it.
"The Namco II 5-in-1 joystick is also worth a look. It has less games and no additional potential, but the games themselves are great. The joystick feels a little loose, making the controls a tad difficult on some of the games."
I agree about the joystick being loose. If you're mechanically inclined, you can pop off the casing and roll your own controller for this one. That's what I did. I happenend to have a nice leaf spring joystick that I hacked into this game. Everything joystick and button related has wires you can cut into so you don't even have to solder. The twisty joystick steering wheel is a pot with a spring mechanism. With a little elbow grease and a stereo knob, you can get a knob steering wheel if you still want to play Pole Position. The hardest part is getting past the Loctite they use for the case screws.
I guess I'll just have to download a newer emulator. My version of SNES9x didn't handle the backgrounds properly during some scenes. Thanks for the info.
Sure they put in some excellent Zelda games from the NES and from the N64 but would it have killed them to put Link to the Past on the disc? It's a game that most SNES emulators I've played have trouble with. I'd love to have a version that I know works and that doesn't require me to trot out the SNES to play it.
I remember that Price of Persia was a great puzzle-platformer. I also remember rapidly losing interest in Prince of Persia 2 because you spend the first half hour on stupid sword fights (which are not the engine's strong suit) and Mario-style jumping segments (no cool swithes, levers, or deadly floor tiles). The game then went to 3D and lost any semblence of puzzle-platformer. The "series" you are thinking of is only one game long.
"Two years ago the pixelated graphics and long-ago memories of the Prince of Persia gave way to the slick and entertaining Sands of Time."
No, back in 1999 the pixelated graphics and long-ago memories of the Prince of Persia gave way to the absolutely dreadful Prince of Persia 3-D. A game so bad I wouldn't play Sands of Time until it was two old because I refused to believe that anything Prince of Persia related could be good after the 3D piece of crap that was Prince of Persia 3D.
"I think the point here is that if the article is longer, it could a) go into the main topic in more detail b) cover more related topics"
But that's not always the case. Sometimes things are just wordier and don't cover any new material. They could just be using more words to make the same point. You know, like when you pad out a one-sentence thought into an entire paragraph. That sort of thing happens because the number of words is not indicitive of the amount of content.
The Wikipedia and Brittanica comparisons should compare information found only in both sources for accuracy. Also, counting errors per entry doesn't give us a good idea of how accurate the articles are. Some errors are far more misleading than others. For example, being a year of on when something was discovered might be a minor error compared to something inherently wrong with the subject of the entry.
Or Microsoft could ask Nintendo. In the NES/SMS/7800/TG16/DidIMissAnybody era, the NES was first to launch and it did ok from what I hear. The Atari 7800 could've been out the gate first but they were afraid to release a console in the aftermath of the console crash. Then again, the Atari 7800 might not have been released at all if Nintendo and Atari had proceeded with their original plans for Atari to release and distribute Nintendo's Famicom in the US.
I'm not laying blame here. I'm not even suggesting that anything be changed. I'm just pointing out that a lot of content labelled 18 and older is targeted towards consumers much younger than that.
BTW, I used the cigarette example because that was a clearcut case where the cigarette company claimed to be marketing toward adults but some whistleblowers prodvided enough evidence to show otherwise.
Somebody missed the season finale of Doctor Who (2-parter) where there was literally a Big Brother set in space. (FWIW, there was also a Weakest Link in space.)
"62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older."
yet
"One quarter of children ages 11 to 16 identify an M-Rated (Mature Content) game as among their favorites."
Do you really think that the folks in marketing aren't aware that their M-rated games are popular among young teens? Do you think they don't go out of their way to cater to that 11 to 16 audience? Sure they'd never come out and say something like that directly, but I'd imagine that a lot of the marketing done for those 18 and older is really targeted at this 11 to 16 crowd.
Marketing Guy: No, the friendly cartoon camel is supposed to appeal to 18 year olds. It's not supposed to encourage kids to smoke!
Of course it was a processor, but Sony made it out to be a specialized processor for one particular task. It ended up being a general purpose processor (and the CPU for the whole unit from what I understand). We were told it was a chip that specialized (as in that's all it did) in processing character emotions. No dark lords or anything, but nontheless a processor devoted to that single purpose. Promising something like that in your system makes it sound like there's so much processing power in the PS2 that Sony can just devote an entire processor to emotion in characters. No big deal. That's pretty sweet. It's also pretty untrue.
I had a boss once who didn't lie to me but at the same time wouldn't follow my instructions when I had to help him over the phone. I'd tell him to do one thing. He'd do something else and then ask me what to do next. I'd tell him to do what I told him to do in the first place. After 3 or 4 tries, he'd actually do what I told him to do and his problem was usually solved.
The "Emotion Engine" on the PS2 is merely a CPU. The "Emotion Engine" Sony's marketing arm promised was a chip that specialized in rendering emotions on characters in the game and responding to emotions from other characters in the game (and perhaps even the user).
I bought the Epyx as soon as I saw one for the first time. I think it was 1988. I honestly wasn't that impressed. You can't switchhand the Epyx controller like you could with a proline. I actually used to switch off left and right-handed on the proline when one hand would get tired. The Epyx forces you to use your right on the joystick. I didn't think it would be that big a deal until I used it a lot. It was constructed pretty nicely though (expect for the Select and Start pseudo buttons that got a little hard to press after a while). I also thought the ball at the top could be larger but it wasn't too bad. Alas, I got it on clearence from Babbages so I couldn't take it back.
Much like Duffman, Sony promises lots of things. There were a lot of features that were supposed to be available on the PS2 that just never ended up in the final system. Not wanting a 360 because it's not that much an improvement over the current XBox is good reasoning. Not wanting a 360 because you just bought a new console a couple of years ago is good reasoning. Not wanting a 360 because of all the things Sony claims will be on the PS3 is just silly. We don't know the "Top 10 reasons for a PS3" because we don't know exactly what the PS3 is yet.
Also, while the Revolution's controller does pose some unique possibilities for gameplay, it's only a controller. Any of the modern gaming consoles could implement such a controller. If it's that big a deal, expect MS and Sony to have their own versions by the end of 2006.
Slashdot Mirror
Madden sold just fine this year. Unfortunately for EA, it probably didn't sell well enough to make up for the wad of cash they paid the NFL for an exclusive license. Given that the NFL LOVES exclusive licensing, I imagine the NFL told EA that if they didn't pay for the exclusive, they'd sell exclusive rights to someone else.
Disney has had their moments. Tron was a Disney tie-in and quite possibly the best movie tie-in ever. Also, the Magical Kingdom game on the SNES was a cut above most of the generic side scrollers. Can't figure out why that's not the engine they used in their later games. Disney also has a Mario Kart type game on the DC that I'm not fond of but my wife prefers over any of the Mario Karts she's played (which I think is all of them but the new DS one).
Cool. I got the first post :) And it can't even be modded down.
You also forgot Logic Problems and those magazines that have the assortment of puzzles. I go through a lot of those.
There's also a game I used to play as a kid on pen and paper. The way it worked was that each person had three battleships drawn out on a base on an edge of the paper. There were islands in the middle. On each persons turn, they could opt to move one battleship 5 spaces or move one battleship 3 spaces and then shoot at an enemy ship. The spaces were just dashes on the paper and shooting involved placing the tip of your finger on the eraser of the pencil and pushing down. This caused the pencil to shoot out a semi-random line representing your torpedo. If your torpedo hit another player's ship before it hits land, that player's ship is destroyed. The last person to have an unsunken ship is the winner.
I have a disability that prevents me from enjoying the new SWG system. If you could just change it back to the old system then people with the same disability as I have (dontlikecrapism) would be much better accomodated.
I think I know why people are claiming that PC Gaming is dying. The old stongholds of PC game sales are constantly reducing shelf space for PC games in order to accomodate console games. Anyone remember back when Software Etc was a computer store with a small console game section (that usually only included fringe software line Lynx and SMS carts)? Now it's a console store with a shelf devoted to PC gaming. PC games are getting less shelf space in environments they used to own. That doesn't mean PC gaming is dying. It just means lots of advertising and massive amounts of shelf space aren't necessary to entice PC gamers. That one shelf of PC games that's left now at EB has about as many games as EB has ever had for the PC, only in a smaller footprint.
I do hope that whatever Google does about displaying logos, images, etc, they do not sacrifice the decent speed the search engine has right now. I'd hate for Google to turn into another site that has good information but that stupid image from doubleclick has to load before you can see any of it.
"The Namco II 5-in-1 joystick is also worth a look. It has less games and no additional potential, but the games themselves are great. The joystick feels a little loose, making the controls a tad difficult on some of the games."
I agree about the joystick being loose. If you're mechanically inclined, you can pop off the casing and roll your own controller for this one. That's what I did. I happenend to have a nice leaf spring joystick that I hacked into this game. Everything joystick and button related has wires you can cut into so you don't even have to solder. The twisty joystick steering wheel is a pot with a spring mechanism. With a little elbow grease and a stereo knob, you can get a knob steering wheel if you still want to play Pole Position. The hardest part is getting past the Loctite they use for the case screws.
I guess I'll just have to download a newer emulator. My version of SNES9x didn't handle the backgrounds properly during some scenes. Thanks for the info.
Sure they put in some excellent Zelda games from the NES and from the N64 but would it have killed them to put Link to the Past on the disc? It's a game that most SNES emulators I've played have trouble with. I'd love to have a version that I know works and that doesn't require me to trot out the SNES to play it.
I remember that Price of Persia was a great puzzle-platformer. I also remember rapidly losing interest in Prince of Persia 2 because you spend the first half hour on stupid sword fights (which are not the engine's strong suit) and Mario-style jumping segments (no cool swithes, levers, or deadly floor tiles). The game then went to 3D and lost any semblence of puzzle-platformer. The "series" you are thinking of is only one game long.
I left out the word "years." I don't think it's TOO old now.
"Two years ago the pixelated graphics and long-ago memories of the Prince of Persia gave way to the slick and entertaining Sands of Time."
No, back in 1999 the pixelated graphics and long-ago memories of the Prince of Persia gave way to the absolutely dreadful Prince of Persia 3-D. A game so bad I wouldn't play Sands of Time until it was two old because I refused to believe that anything Prince of Persia related could be good after the 3D piece of crap that was Prince of Persia 3D.
Only if the DC clones are ridiculously more powerful than their Marvel counterparts and have much shallower characterizations.
"I think the point here is that if the article is longer, it could
a) go into the main topic in more detail
b) cover more related topics"
But that's not always the case. Sometimes things are just wordier and don't cover any new material. They could just be using more words to make the same point. You know, like when you pad out a one-sentence thought into an entire paragraph. That sort of thing happens because the number of words is not indicitive of the amount of content.
The Wikipedia and Brittanica comparisons should compare information found only in both sources for accuracy. Also, counting errors per entry doesn't give us a good idea of how accurate the articles are. Some errors are far more misleading than others. For example, being a year of on when something was discovered might be a minor error compared to something inherently wrong with the subject of the entry.
Or Microsoft could ask Nintendo. In the NES/SMS/7800/TG16/DidIMissAnybody era, the NES was first to launch and it did ok from what I hear. The Atari 7800 could've been out the gate first but they were afraid to release a console in the aftermath of the console crash. Then again, the Atari 7800 might not have been released at all if Nintendo and Atari had proceeded with their original plans for Atari to release and distribute Nintendo's Famicom in the US.
I'm not laying blame here. I'm not even suggesting that anything be changed. I'm just pointing out that a lot of content labelled 18 and older is targeted towards consumers much younger than that.
BTW, I used the cigarette example because that was a clearcut case where the cigarette company claimed to be marketing toward adults but some whistleblowers prodvided enough evidence to show otherwise.
Somebody missed the season finale of Doctor Who (2-parter) where there was literally a Big Brother set in space. (FWIW, there was also a Weakest Link in space.)
"62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older."
yet
"One quarter of children ages 11 to 16 identify an M-Rated (Mature Content) game as among their favorites."
Do you really think that the folks in marketing aren't aware that their M-rated games are popular among young teens? Do you think they don't go out of their way to cater to that 11 to 16 audience? Sure they'd never come out and say something like that directly, but I'd imagine that a lot of the marketing done for those 18 and older is really targeted at this 11 to 16 crowd.
Marketing Guy: No, the friendly cartoon camel is supposed to appeal to 18 year olds. It's not supposed to encourage kids to smoke!
Of course it was a processor, but Sony made it out to be a specialized processor for one particular task. It ended up being a general purpose processor (and the CPU for the whole unit from what I understand). We were told it was a chip that specialized (as in that's all it did) in processing character emotions. No dark lords or anything, but nontheless a processor devoted to that single purpose. Promising something like that in your system makes it sound like there's so much processing power in the PS2 that Sony can just devote an entire processor to emotion in characters. No big deal. That's pretty sweet. It's also pretty untrue.
I had a boss once who didn't lie to me but at the same time wouldn't follow my instructions when I had to help him over the phone. I'd tell him to do one thing. He'd do something else and then ask me what to do next. I'd tell him to do what I told him to do in the first place. After 3 or 4 tries, he'd actually do what I told him to do and his problem was usually solved.
The "Emotion Engine" on the PS2 is merely a CPU. The "Emotion Engine" Sony's marketing arm promised was a chip that specialized in rendering emotions on characters in the game and responding to emotions from other characters in the game (and perhaps even the user).
The Emotion Engine is the first one to come to mind.
I bought the Epyx as soon as I saw one for the first time. I think it was 1988. I honestly wasn't that impressed. You can't switchhand the Epyx controller like you could with a proline. I actually used to switch off left and right-handed on the proline when one hand would get tired. The Epyx forces you to use your right on the joystick. I didn't think it would be that big a deal until I used it a lot. It was constructed pretty nicely though (expect for the Select and Start pseudo buttons that got a little hard to press after a while). I also thought the ball at the top could be larger but it wasn't too bad. Alas, I got it on clearence from Babbages so I couldn't take it back.
Much like Duffman, Sony promises lots of things. There were a lot of features that were supposed to be available on the PS2 that just never ended up in the final system. Not wanting a 360 because it's not that much an improvement over the current XBox is good reasoning. Not wanting a 360 because you just bought a new console a couple of years ago is good reasoning. Not wanting a 360 because of all the things Sony claims will be on the PS3 is just silly. We don't know the "Top 10 reasons for a PS3" because we don't know exactly what the PS3 is yet.
Also, while the Revolution's controller does pose some unique possibilities for gameplay, it's only a controller. Any of the modern gaming consoles could implement such a controller. If it's that big a deal, expect MS and Sony to have their own versions by the end of 2006.