I think you just realized the real motive. The ink lobby has "donated to the president". Everyone knows how expensive ink cartridges are(or laser). Open Open Office (pun intended) and type something. You will see that the end number of pages is the same, but that Times New Roman 14 uses wider parts of letters (total width same including spacing). You will need to open it up to see what I mean. This will cost the governement millions paying for these extra cartridges. Fear the Ink Lobby!
If I get this right, Microsoft is trying to make an incompatible, low cost console that has mediocre technology. Wasn't that the downfall of the gamecube? Lousy technology? No back compatability?
The next thing is having three 64bit processors. Won't that be a pain in the ass to develop for? 64bit is relatively new in games. And three processors? WTF is MS thinking? As powerful as average computer? The average computer processing power is only 1.4ghz(I think. And remeber by the end of 2005 there will be (supposedly) 4ghz chips from Intel's Prescott core.
They also say the chip is based of the r400 core. The r400 core will be used to power the next generation 9800xts or whatever they are called. But they will also power some mediocre cards.
Learn from your competitors Microsoft! Back Compatibility? No, but the PS3 will. Hard Drive? No, but that was the best feature of XBox along the XB live. What the hell MS! You are going to lose to tux and to sony!
Note the mistake: The machine also will have about 256 megabytes of dynamic random access memory. But Microsoft will upgrade that to 512 gigabytes......
The other 11 gigs are for "backup" data I am in high school, and I asked the why they needed the 30gig iPod.
Music. That was their first answer. They only have 2 gigs of music each after questioning. I can imagine having 4 gigs. Now think some more. How much of that music do you listen to? Not more than the same 10-15 songs.
The next answer I got was "data". How many essays fill up in 26 gigs of data? 1,040,000 at 25 kb per essay.
Powerpoints? 5200 at 5mb each (inculding pictures). I know the homework is a bit much, but really? So needing "data" is a load of crap. And so is needing to keep "backups". One little drop can cause some problems. And if you really have 26 gigs of data, can you just plug it in and have it work? As far as I know, NO. (I do not have an iPod) So that reason is a load of sh*t.
So what is the core reason for owning a 30 gig iPod?
PORN.
How do you keep you parents from finding out where it is, if you are to stupid to take away your parent's admin powers? Take it with you. One of my friends just got busted for having a 200gig hardrive full of porn. He lost his girlfriend the next day. He didn't want to give up his "routine." So he put it on his iPod. If you want to keep something where your parents can't find it, put it somewhere you can always watch.
And when the iVideo attachment for you iPod comes out, I think it should be renamed to the "iPorn" or "iWack". Remember Steve, screen cleaner will be a big seller! No one wants evidence.
I think the "random zeroes and ones" are Beagle's message to NASA: We 0wnt your b0t!
Europe is tired of the American Dominance on Earth. It is not losing control of mars. Recently it was graffiting the old Viking Probes, waiting for Spirit to leave the platform so it could strike.
But what if the Martians are just trying to contact us?
One sniper can hold down 50 troops. That is true. But snipers are the elite of the elite. How many of the slashdot crowd have fired a gun? When I was 15 my dad gave me a low caliber (5.56?) pistol and told me how to shoot. I took one shot and the gun literally blew out of my hand. Shooting a pistol is hard. You need practice to be remotely good. If a pistol is hard, then imagine a a sniper rifle.
The army snipers are the uber elite. Have you ever played with some guy on server who is amazing and isn't hacking? He is equal to the elite skill of snipers. Games should be made so that only the best of the best can use sniper rifles. Include: Posture, WInd (w/ variable wind zones), Bullet lag, bullet drop, breathing, scope focus, take away non scop crosshair and health. Give the ability if supported to look around. If it was hard enough, only one or two guys could snipe well.
The sniper rifle would be the finger of god. But you would have to be god to use it well.
I think is a stupid gimmick. The racing wheel they described would be notoriously expensive at $700. For $150 I can get myself a nice (real) leather covered steering wheel, from a German(Italian?) luxury car maker, the Logitech Momo Steering Wheel. Fitness is great, but $700 when I can have an uberwheel for $150? Even if it runs higher, which it may, it is definitely cheaper than $700. (A real steering wheel costs $225 from them)
My next point is gameplay. From the prolouge edition, GT4 is supposed to be extremely hard. It will be difficult to floor the accelerator, at the perfect time coming out of the turn. If I am going to be straining to accelerate, then I will lose the race, get frustrated with the game and stop. If its not fun and I will not play and I will not exercise.
If you are obese, and need something to lose weight, then maybe. But there are better cheaper alternatives. Second of all, it will butcher the gameplay. The whole point of videogames is fun. I doubt that this will make video games more fun. If it does though, then it may be worth it's hefty $700 price.
Everybody else has covered the other things, but the most important thing is STAFF
You will need the tech support types. Get computer savvy guys, who are not ubergeeks to walk around and help people. I hat to say this, as I am one, but avoid getting pizza faced nerds to be omnipresent, as a lot of gamers don't want to be associated with nerds, and will help the cred. However, you should have a couple of people who are ubernerds to try and fix something when it goes real bad. The non ubernerds should also be told tell everyone about the place. Make it in a conveneint location, preferably in a mall.
Janitors. I can't say this enough even though other people already have. If the place reeks, has food on the floor, people will NOT go. Keep those bathrooms nice!
Another thing is to land sponserships as it would add to the financial feasability (sp?). Ati or Nvidia would be willing to litter the place graphics cards, for some free targeted advertising. Computer makers would also offer some hefty discounts, for the free advertising. Every single periferal (sp?) should be emblazoned with a logo. If you like what you are playing on, you will buy it. Note of caution: don't over do it. No one likes being bombarded with ads.
Atmosphere
This is very important. You will need girls. Discounts, anything to get them there. Keep a couple of normal looking girls employed to help. It should be dark, but not impossible to see. You will want a couple of arcade games, like DDR to let people play. DDR may atract women and that alone is worth it. You should also try to keep some high profile games going on a big screen, and also give room for people to see what someone is doing. You should also make everything look cool. Play some sort of techno quietly and have a kind of urban look. If it is dark, shortcuts may not be noticed.
All in all, just try to think cool, keep it affordable. ($20 for 5 hours, or $5 an hour to play) If you don't want to use the hourly scheme, $20 a day is probably ideal. People won't think it is expensive, but hey, I'm thirsty. Do not make food a ripoff. No more than $1.25 for a 20 oz soda or else people will feel ripped off. You also may want to make a deal with EB or a video game store to get people to "demo the game" and then head back over (think next door) and buy it.
I sincerely hope this works, and if it does, put one in Baltimore. Good luck man.
Actually, you are completely right. Americas Army just signed a contract with some server farm to host european AA games. AA is extremely popular with the troops, as they can enjoy combat, and as an avid player of AA, are quite good at it.
After the disastrous "Grabbed by the Ghoulies" nearly all of Rare's projects have been canned except for Perfect Dark: Zero. Apparently the game creators cannot stand Microsoft's rules and the dev teams hate the hardware.
End result: bad product, bad karma and a bunch of angry MS henchmen planning to kill them.
Florida is considered to be winnable by the Democrats. Government workers vote more often than the average Joe. Florida has a high unemployment.
Combine these facts and you see the Bush's logic. Start a new space program, then you employ more people, and people are happy. Then they vote for the President, and then he gets reelected and doesn't have to follow through with his "plan".
I am in high school, and in Middle School we had TEAMS or Technology Education Alliance with Middle Schools. It is sponsored by NASA and a bunch of other corporations. We had Mindstorms robot sport competitions. The first year (very first for the whole thing) we lost to the school which had the creators of the event, and in 7th and 8th grade we won. In 8th grade the champion match was decided by a meager 207-35 victory for us, due to my amazing defense robot. Anyway it was a lot of fun and I would hate to see it go, even though I am too old now. Most of the sets were missing a lot of peices and I had to bring stuff from home, and it would be a real shame.
To continue bragging we also had a program that would jam robot signals, and even one to erase the firmware!!! However, the competition was too weak, and we never used it during the matches. (Only a last resort during the last 30 seconds. If only they had done battlebots. . .
But to stop bragging, I learned a TON about computers, reverse engineering the signals etc, engineering and teamwork. I wish that more kids had the oppurtunity to do this, as this was THE highlight of my years in Middle School.
Well the BTX motherboard form is coming soon, and probably mainstream acceptance will probably occur mid 2006. Course Dell will have to be pricks and screw up all the nice Mobos, so the cases can't be changed.
And you said why dont they use laptop sized drives?
Easy, price. A Fujitsu hardrive, 146.8GB costs $614 dollars( NewEgg)
A normal 160 GB (I couldnt find any 147 GB models) 5.25 SATA drive costs $147. ( NewEgg) Some law (moore's?) says that HD capacity doubles every year or something like that. The difference remains being ABSOLUTELY HUGE.
Somebody else mentioned cable size and for a couple of bucks you can pick up nice rounded IDE cables.
I have to admit I am a Fallout lover. While some trashed Fallout Tactic I thought it was the greatest game. The interface was not that bad. Get over it, you can't read.
That is not my point though. I think that Fallout 3 or 4 should be a MMORPG. It has all the elements neccesary. Just add say bio-upgrades similar to Deus Ex's and keep the arsenals of weapons (add 20 or 30 preferably) and make it so that each player owns vehicles and a house, and you would have the ultimate MMORPG. Make it so you can mine stuff to make armor etc, having a complicated crafting system, make user created clans, allow people to build a "outpost" that would be their house all in glorious 3D. Spawning would be limited to a "spawn site" preferably as high level characters would be in the extreme distances, hours away from their point of death. The main thing though would be vehicles. Convoys crossing the nuclear wastelands, being ambushed by piles of behemoths all crouching behind a series of hills. It could be beautiful and a money making machine! I can go on forever about the Gameplay as I have thought it all out in my free time. Seriously if you interested in my idea email me at ssherman@mail.friendsbalt.org.
What they need to do is adjust to the players styles. I like to camp and snipe in just about every game. I wish it would then cause the AI to start moving more rapidly, and check sniper spots more often. Do you always do something when you enter a room? Then the AI should brilliantly counter it, so I have to get a new strategy. Do I always camp in the same place? Then nade me.
Second of all I dont want it to turn pathetically easy, even though every game should have a difficulty setting called baby or wuss. (especially racing games like Gran Turismo) that would let you win. I labored so many damn hours perfecting my skills to no reward in Gran Turismo Three and I want my Formula One cars NOW!!! But what is the fun if I never die and never get hurt and don't get that rush when you complete a challenge. Because when I beat GT3 I will be so happy and thrilled and I will feel my $50 and racing wheel paid off. I will buy GT4, hence a happy customer and money for the corporations giving a financial incentive to the suits.
What it should do is offer a hint, to really bad players(flash bang a room with possible enemies and friendlies!!). Adapt to my style. If I want to snipe, then those guards better give up the grenades and take up some binoculars and a rifle. If a player is good at one method, make the objectives possible using that strategy, but encourage all the others too! Adaptive AI should enhance game play and make the game last. If I completed the it the first time sniping, and I want to be forced to try close quarters combat next time, without setting something I have not done any harder and make me have to vary my strategies to complete it. If Splinter Cell pulls off what I want, then UbiSoft will be very rich and I will be one very happy gamer.
I dont know about you, but I cannot stand the stuff on the radio, I wince when I hear it. So being a videogame addict, one day I left Metroid Prime on and I came back, (was right out of savepoint in Phendrana Drifts) and listened. The music was great, and I just listened. So I got kazaa and downloaded all the soundtrack music. Then I told my friends and they showed me Final Fantasy soundtracks. Just glorious. It has even moved into the mainstream now with a WIERD song. Think hard rock Zelda theme, its terrible in my opinion, but its worth listening to if you like game music and want to laugh at it.
My friend has a multiconsole controller, that is essentiall a PS2 controller except it has a cord that splits up into three(PS2, GC, XBOX) at the end. Unfortunatly I do not know the name, but they exist. He said the controller was pricey, and I believe it costs $40 online to $50 in a store.
Otherwise go wireless, as countless others have suggested.
The advantage is price. If you have a PC, and want to play online games, you need a good computer. Many slashdot readers have good computers, but to play the new releases with average detail settings you need to spend at least $1000 not including the monitor for a good gaming computer that you will need to update at the absolute least once every three years. You should upgrade once every 18 months.
A console costs $200 not including TV. Three years of $50 play comes to $150 plus the additional $20 for the first year and starter kit comes to $370. Games cost roughly the same so we dont need to include that.
I think when voice chat is best that you have to press a button to talk. It makes a huge difference by cutting out the junk. Otherwise you have some guy blabbering about the lag, calling you a cheater when you own him, calling you a loser when you get owned etc. This is a major problem with xbox live, socom2 especially and some teamspeak (teamspeak.org) servers.
If you have ever played a strategy required game such as Americas Army(americasarmy.com, just released 2.0a), with voice chat and a good clan it allows for a lot of depth and a lot more fun. You can coordinate attcks, alert snipers to enemies and altogether improve the experience.
If you let them build a computer, you will face two big problems.
A: "Daddy, Daddy the new Athlon Opteron cam out!!! Can we have $600 for it and a new motherboard?" or similarly "Jimmy got a new computer and it is 3.0 ghz. 2.8ghz isnt enough, can we have $700 for a new Intel Extreme 3.2ghz processor?"
B: *SNAP* "Daddy i think i broke the connectors to the hard drive." or whatever valuable part you choose.
So if you have a couple thousand dollars to spend on computer parts, sounds like a good idea.
I think the ESRB is way to strict. The article says that 84% of parents agreed with the ESRB, or thought that they were too strict.
On TV there is more blood and violence than some videogames, and TV is free. If you dont want your kids to buy violent videogames, dont give them enough money to afford it.
On the flip side however, Americas Army, which contains M worthy material, blood and guns, recieved a T. It is also free, available for a download by anybody, not even checking their age. Why? Because it is a US Army recruiting tool. Lets face it, we have to indoctrinate our children while they are young.
Your kids will also get their hands on bad games anyway, at a friend house or some other uncontrollable way. And if you wnat to shelter your kids from porn and other forms of sexual entertainment you would have to take away the internet.
So what happens is that once developers realize that they cant have just a smidgen of violence, they turn games into SOF2, which has buckets of gore and blood.
The ESRB is a big fat corrupt organization, designed to give parents a security bubble, when parents should be responsible for thier kids.
In an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly about a year ago, they wondered whether Sega would sue EA for copying a game, and ruining it. I have Road Rage, and it is the worst game i have ever played.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you just realized the real motive. The ink lobby has "donated to the president". Everyone knows how expensive ink cartridges are(or laser). Open Open Office (pun intended) and type something. You will see that the end number of pages is the same, but that Times New Roman 14 uses wider parts of letters (total width same including spacing). You will need to open it up to see what I mean. This will cost the governement millions paying for these extra cartridges. Fear the Ink Lobby!
The next thing is having three 64bit processors. Won't that be a pain in the ass to develop for? 64bit is relatively new in games. And three processors? WTF is MS thinking? As powerful as average computer? The average computer processing power is only 1.4ghz(I think. And remeber by the end of 2005 there will be (supposedly) 4ghz chips from Intel's Prescott core.
They also say the chip is based of the r400 core. The r400 core will be used to power the next generation 9800xts or whatever they are called. But they will also power some mediocre cards.
Learn from your competitors Microsoft! Back Compatibility? No, but the PS3 will. Hard Drive? No, but that was the best feature of XBox along the XB live. What the hell MS! You are going to lose to tux and to sony!
Note the mistake: The machine also will have about 256 megabytes of dynamic random access memory. But Microsoft will upgrade that to 512 gigabytes ......
Wow, if thats true, I just might buy one.
Music. That was their first answer. They only have 2 gigs of music each after questioning. I can imagine having 4 gigs. Now think some more. How much of that music do you listen to? Not more than the same 10-15 songs.
The next answer I got was "data". How many essays fill up in 26 gigs of data? 1,040,000 at 25 kb per essay. Powerpoints? 5200 at 5mb each (inculding pictures). I know the homework is a bit much, but really? So needing "data" is a load of crap. And so is needing to keep "backups". One little drop can cause some problems. And if you really have 26 gigs of data, can you just plug it in and have it work? As far as I know, NO. (I do not have an iPod) So that reason is a load of sh*t.
So what is the core reason for owning a 30 gig iPod?
PORN.
How do you keep you parents from finding out where it is, if you are to stupid to take away your parent's admin powers? Take it with you. One of my friends just got busted for having a 200gig hardrive full of porn. He lost his girlfriend the next day. He didn't want to give up his "routine." So he put it on his iPod. If you want to keep something where your parents can't find it, put it somewhere you can always watch.
And when the iVideo attachment for you iPod comes out, I think it should be renamed to the "iPorn" or "iWack". Remember Steve, screen cleaner will be a big seller! No one wants evidence.
Finally, I can have two different big headed characters!
Europe is tired of the American Dominance on Earth. It is not losing control of mars. Recently it was graffiting the old Viking Probes, waiting for Spirit to leave the platform so it could strike.
But what if the Martians are just trying to contact us?
The army snipers are the uber elite. Have you ever played with some guy on server who is amazing and isn't hacking? He is equal to the elite skill of snipers. Games should be made so that only the best of the best can use sniper rifles. Include: Posture, WInd (w/ variable wind zones), Bullet lag, bullet drop, breathing, scope focus, take away non scop crosshair and health. Give the ability if supported to look around. If it was hard enough, only one or two guys could snipe well.
The sniper rifle would be the finger of god. But you would have to be god to use it well.
My next point is gameplay. From the prolouge edition, GT4 is supposed to be extremely hard. It will be difficult to floor the accelerator, at the perfect time coming out of the turn. If I am going to be straining to accelerate, then I will lose the race, get frustrated with the game and stop. If its not fun and I will not play and I will not exercise.
If you are obese, and need something to lose weight, then maybe. But there are better cheaper alternatives. Second of all, it will butcher the gameplay. The whole point of videogames is fun. I doubt that this will make video games more fun. If it does though, then it may be worth it's hefty $700 price.
You will need the tech support types. Get computer savvy guys, who are not ubergeeks to walk around and help people. I hat to say this, as I am one, but avoid getting pizza faced nerds to be omnipresent, as a lot of gamers don't want to be associated with nerds, and will help the cred. However, you should have a couple of people who are ubernerds to try and fix something when it goes real bad. The non ubernerds should also be told tell everyone about the place. Make it in a conveneint location, preferably in a mall.
Janitors. I can't say this enough even though other people already have. If the place reeks, has food on the floor, people will NOT go. Keep those bathrooms nice!
Another thing is to land sponserships as it would add to the financial feasability (sp?). Ati or Nvidia would be willing to litter the place graphics cards, for some free targeted advertising. Computer makers would also offer some hefty discounts, for the free advertising. Every single periferal (sp?) should be emblazoned with a logo. If you like what you are playing on, you will buy it. Note of caution: don't over do it. No one likes being bombarded with ads.
Atmosphere
This is very important. You will need girls. Discounts, anything to get them there. Keep a couple of normal looking girls employed to help. It should be dark, but not impossible to see. You will want a couple of arcade games, like DDR to let people play. DDR may atract women and that alone is worth it. You should also try to keep some high profile games going on a big screen, and also give room for people to see what someone is doing. You should also make everything look cool. Play some sort of techno quietly and have a kind of urban look. If it is dark, shortcuts may not be noticed.
All in all, just try to think cool, keep it affordable. ($20 for 5 hours, or $5 an hour to play) If you don't want to use the hourly scheme, $20 a day is probably ideal. People won't think it is expensive, but hey, I'm thirsty. Do not make food a ripoff. No more than $1.25 for a 20 oz soda or else people will feel ripped off. You also may want to make a deal with EB or a video game store to get people to "demo the game" and then head back over (think next door) and buy it.
I sincerely hope this works, and if it does, put one in Baltimore. Good luck man.
Actually, you are completely right. Americas Army just signed a contract with some server farm to host european AA games. AA is extremely popular with the troops, as they can enjoy combat, and as an avid player of AA, are quite good at it.
End result: bad product, bad karma and a bunch of angry MS henchmen planning to kill them.
Florida is considered to be winnable by the Democrats. Government workers vote more often than the average Joe. Florida has a high unemployment.
Combine these facts and you see the Bush's logic. Start a new space program, then you employ more people, and people are happy. Then they vote for the President, and then he gets reelected and doesn't have to follow through with his "plan".
To continue bragging we also had a program that would jam robot signals, and even one to erase the firmware!!! However, the competition was too weak, and we never used it during the matches. (Only a last resort during the last 30 seconds. If only they had done battlebots. . .
But to stop bragging, I learned a TON about computers, reverse engineering the signals etc, engineering and teamwork. I wish that more kids had the oppurtunity to do this, as this was THE highlight of my years in Middle School.
And you said why dont they use laptop sized drives?
Easy, price. A Fujitsu hardrive, 146.8GB costs $614 dollars( NewEgg) A normal 160 GB (I couldnt find any 147 GB models) 5.25 SATA drive costs $147. ( NewEgg) Some law (moore's?) says that HD capacity doubles every year or something like that. The difference remains being ABSOLUTELY HUGE.
Somebody else mentioned cable size and for a couple of bucks you can pick up nice rounded IDE cables.
That is not my point though. I think that Fallout 3 or 4 should be a MMORPG. It has all the elements neccesary. Just add say bio-upgrades similar to Deus Ex's and keep the arsenals of weapons (add 20 or 30 preferably) and make it so that each player owns vehicles and a house, and you would have the ultimate MMORPG. Make it so you can mine stuff to make armor etc, having a complicated crafting system, make user created clans, allow people to build a "outpost" that would be their house all in glorious 3D. Spawning would be limited to a "spawn site" preferably as high level characters would be in the extreme distances, hours away from their point of death. The main thing though would be vehicles. Convoys crossing the nuclear wastelands, being ambushed by piles of behemoths all crouching behind a series of hills. It could be beautiful and a money making machine! I can go on forever about the Gameplay as I have thought it all out in my free time. Seriously if you interested in my idea email me at ssherman@mail.friendsbalt.org.
What they need to do is adjust to the players styles. I like to camp and snipe in just about every game. I wish it would then cause the AI to start moving more rapidly, and check sniper spots more often. Do you always do something when you enter a room? Then the AI should brilliantly counter it, so I have to get a new strategy. Do I always camp in the same place? Then nade me.
Second of all I dont want it to turn pathetically easy, even though every game should have a difficulty setting called baby or wuss. (especially racing games like Gran Turismo) that would let you win. I labored so many damn hours perfecting my skills to no reward in Gran Turismo Three and I want my Formula One cars NOW!!! But what is the fun if I never die and never get hurt and don't get that rush when you complete a challenge. Because when I beat GT3 I will be so happy and thrilled and I will feel my $50 and racing wheel paid off. I will buy GT4, hence a happy customer and money for the corporations giving a financial incentive to the suits.
What it should do is offer a hint, to really bad players(flash bang a room with possible enemies and friendlies!!). Adapt to my style. If I want to snipe, then those guards better give up the grenades and take up some binoculars and a rifle. If a player is good at one method, make the objectives possible using that strategy, but encourage all the others too! Adaptive AI should enhance game play and make the game last. If I completed the it the first time sniping, and I want to be forced to try close quarters combat next time, without setting something I have not done any harder and make me have to vary my strategies to complete it. If Splinter Cell pulls off what I want, then UbiSoft will be very rich and I will be one very happy gamer.
But thats not my point. Retro games such as the glorious Pacman had lovely sound. This music has now taken a life of its own. Read this Wired Article to see what I mean.
My friend has a multiconsole controller, that is essentiall a PS2 controller except it has a cord that splits up into three(PS2, GC, XBOX) at the end. Unfortunatly I do not know the name, but they exist. He said the controller was pricey, and I believe it costs $40 online to $50 in a store.
Otherwise go wireless, as countless others have suggested.
A console costs $200 not including TV. Three years of $50 play comes to $150 plus the additional $20 for the first year and starter kit comes to $370. Games cost roughly the same so we dont need to include that.
$1000-$370=$630
That is why you play on a console online.
If you have ever played a strategy required game such as Americas Army(americasarmy.com, just released 2.0a), with voice chat and a good clan it allows for a lot of depth and a lot more fun. You can coordinate attcks, alert snipers to enemies and altogether improve the experience.
If you let them build a computer, you will face two big problems.
A: "Daddy, Daddy the new Athlon Opteron cam out!!! Can we have $600 for it and a new motherboard?" or similarly "Jimmy got a new computer and it is 3.0 ghz. 2.8ghz isnt enough, can we have $700 for a new Intel Extreme 3.2ghz processor?"
B: *SNAP* "Daddy i think i broke the connectors to the hard drive." or whatever valuable part you choose.
So if you have a couple thousand dollars to spend on computer parts, sounds like a good idea.
I hate to be bitter, and I know i will be moderated down, but I posted this on Monday about the same article.
No need to find a WIFI hotspot ever! Enjoy high speed net 200kbps, anywhere!!!!!!!!!!
I think the ESRB is way to strict. The article says that 84% of parents agreed with the ESRB, or thought that they were too strict.
On TV there is more blood and violence than some videogames, and TV is free. If you dont want your kids to buy violent videogames, dont give them enough money to afford it.
On the flip side however, Americas Army, which contains M worthy material, blood and guns, recieved a T. It is also free, available for a download by anybody, not even checking their age. Why? Because it is a US Army recruiting tool. Lets face it, we have to indoctrinate our children while they are young.
Your kids will also get their hands on bad games anyway, at a friend house or some other uncontrollable way. And if you wnat to shelter your kids from porn and other forms of sexual entertainment you would have to take away the internet.
So what happens is that once developers realize that they cant have just a smidgen of violence, they turn games into SOF2, which has buckets of gore and blood.
The ESRB is a big fat corrupt organization, designed to give parents a security bubble, when parents should be responsible for thier kids.
In an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly about a year ago, they wondered whether Sega would sue EA for copying a game, and ruining it. I have Road Rage, and it is the worst game i have ever played.