That's true, but I'm sure Nintendo kept a handle on the quality of their games a little more intimately than just screening the review sites. Someone in the article even stated that the best way to determine the best games to release under your liscence is to play them. Personally I think this should be the goal strategy for any company trying to produce a game under their intellectual properties. Saying that this approach might be too expensive, take too much time, etc. just seems to be a cop-out as well as illustrate the fact that the one selling their liscence is only interested in making some cash off of their product anyway; that they don't want to go that extra mile for quality control, they'd rather just unload the responsibility on someone else so they aren't accountable.
The result, insists Jason Hall, senior vp of Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, will be better games.
Wrong, Mr. Hall. I think your result will be less games.
I'm no professional game developer, but as far as I'm concerned I'd rather not even risk going with a liscenced product if it means I might have to shell out a rather hefty amount of money because the "reviews" say my product sucked. Hopefully, the rest of the game development community will use this as an excuse to explore some fresh ideas, and instead of trying to hawk terrible games based on already familiar liscences they might take a chance at being creative again.
Anyways, the Matrix is a piss-poor example for Atari to cite. That game only sold because of the movie, but coincidentally the movies sucked too, so in the end I'm sure neither Atari nor WB lost anything on that one. A better example would be to talk about the horrendous series of Simpsons games up until Hit & Run (not an original title, but definitely several steps above a game like Virtual Bart... Dear Lord...).
I first learned of these sites today also, and after checking them out for a bit when I was supposed to be working, I also felt that they were incredibly one-sided and their attack strategy was totally missing the point. They brought out factual aspects of Michael Moore's filmaking to discredit him, where his points (as stated above) are a bit more artistic and require a bit of thought to get.
However, I thought the sites did bring up a very crucial aspect of Michael Moore's filmaking that has turned me off from him since Roger & Me and that is the fact that the man is a bit TOO artistic when it comes to making a documentary. Often times, he presents the facts in a way that tries to embarass the other side. He is incredibly partial to his own stance, and as someone had posted here earlier on slashdot, his movies are more about his opinions that the actual truth. Now, there is nothing wrong with making movies in this fashion, and I think he does a pretty good job, but the problem is that he sells and presents them as DOCUMENTARIES. People, myself included, see these movies for the first time and have a mindset of much of what they are seeing is fact. Now I'm not saying that documentaries should be inherently interpreted as fact, but I think the basic format of documentaries/reality tv/whatever has the tendency to allow people to subconciously turn their thought processes off and just sort of "suck in" for bit, and I think that Moore knows this and uses it to his advantage.
Bottom line is, just like anybody else, the man is trying to sell a product, and it all comes down to marketing, marketing, marketing. He knows his market and his "anti" market, and they both make him tons of money. I don't have a problem with that, I guess. The only problem I have is with him trying to tout himself as some kind of ingenious filmaker who sees so much more than "average" Americans do, and he just so happened to be generous enough to take the time and make the documentaries to show us.
Once I finally got my hands on a Bluetooth enabled laptop a few months ago, I've been able to send ringtones to my T610 without any problems whatsoever. The best part is that I can use practically any MIDI I find online, which means I don't have to settle for the tripe that is otherwise "offered" by my cell phone provider.
Anyways, I've found that video game MIDIs, particularly SNES, make the best ringtones. The instruments carry over well to a ring, there are hundreds and thousands of available songs you can get online, and they're just all out fun.
So, I don't really see why a community like slashdot would really care that they can't put the latest Outkast or 50 Cent ring on their phone. There are much better rings out there. Just be courteous and turn those goddamn things off before entering a movie theatre or something, cause I can tell you right fucking now I don't want to hear Kefka's theme from FF6 blasting out of your phone right as a J. Lo-portrayed Samus Aran is putting the hurt down on some aliens in the next big John Woo movie.
No, it doesn't necessarily weird me out, but it's a pretty silly statistic to analyze I think. Back when I had my NES and SNES, I took those everywhere. Moved it all over my house, took it to family gatherings, whatever. And this was more than 10 years ago, and I was just a kid. Why would an XBOX room visits stat be any more important today than it was 10 or 15 years ago? This seriously is no insight whatsoever... Maybe they expected people to buy an XBOX every time they left their house?
I think I have to disagree with you on this one...
In a copy of Wired a few months back Peter Jackson made the comment that the movie theatre experience is becoming easier and easier to simulate in our homes. Large screen TVs, HD, surround sound systems, all of which are becoming a lot more affordable and easier for people to set up themselves. So, what he suggested was that the next challenge for Hollywood was to get people out of their homes and back into theatre seats.
I personally found Jackson's comment to be pretty accurate because of the HUGE changes undergoing the movie industry right now. Just take a look at DVDs. So much effort seems to go into DVD releases of movies that seemed to pretty much suck in the theatres. Just a few months ago, the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake comes out with a 30 dollar special edition, and I'm sure a ton of people bought it. Sadly, maybe even as many people who went to see the movie. So, right there the movie studio has an income three times that of what was ever possible for them to make in theatres. I never saw the movie, but it looked terrible, and when I happened to see it in the store for such a high price and someone actually buying it, it just got me thinking how the real money isn't so much in the theatres anymore at all.
While I understand about what you're saying about the movie experience not really changing, I don't know if it really makes sense. I mean, yeah you can rent a movie and watch it at home on a low-grade color TV and get the same experience you would back in 1983 or something, but do you really want to? The same applies for video games. Sure, you could whip out your Atari and treat your self to a game of E.T., but I'm sure sometime you're going to want to be able to play your XBOX on an HDTV with surround sound, and play against some schmuck 400 miles away. While I still play my Super Nintendo whenever the fancy strikes me, I still have and love playing my "big three" next gen systems. The bottom line is that the movie and video game industries cater to a consumerist culture, and whether you choose to participate in that is of your own accord, and more power to you either way. But with so much money to be made from idiots all about their creature comforts (myself included), the desire for high end technology for watching movies at home has driven the movie industry to try to give consumers (or at least make them think they're getting) more bang for their buck.
Please tell me how it is not sexist to compare a completely unrealistically proportioned female in sexy ass-pants to a middle-aged scumbag trying to get some action, and declaring the latter as beginning to "cross the line"?
This is a lot like all the hubbub people made about the fucking superbowl "scandal". You have sports institutions like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders or whatever dressed as clad as legally possible for national TV, and then some "racy" pop star busts out her breast for all of America to see and it's an outrage? Come on!
Nudity and sex is all about context, and being an American it seems that too many people get bent out of shape about someone being naked, and it's seriously going to warp the minds of our youth. Nudity is declared as innapropriate, but it's completely OK for every other (if not all) female character on TV to be sporting some sort of cleavage or ass-revealing outfit? Leisure Suit Larry is an ADULT-ORIENTED and sexually themed game, thus I hope we get to see some guys nuts and maybe a rediculously-sized breast getting thrown across our screens here and there. That's the appeal of games like that, right? (I don't play them; someone help me out here...) What I don't understand is why do I happen to turn on some tripe like CSI and see a woman clad in the most "professionally-appropriate" revealing outfit and that's "OK"?
Personally, I think sex is overused in all aspects of American pop culture. But at the same time, the media portrays it as controversial and extreme, and that's why it sells. People always talk about the sexual revolution, blah blah blah, but all the "progress" made in America that ever seems to happen is just allowing women to be able to show more and more of their bodies, and the twisted fools that read magazines like Maxim to oggle over them and continue objectifying, and I think this article only illustrates what kind of a double standard these "journalists" help to create.
I honestly don't mean this as a knock on the writers/designers of Max Payne 2, as I thought it was a phenominal game, but I found the story AND the dialogue to be incredibly cheesy. However, it didn't seem to prevent my enjoyment of the game, or hinder any emotional response. I actually felt like I had something invested in the game, and felt authentic anger towards the games antagonist. However, it was only the "in-game" story elements I found to be at all rewarding (the portion of the game where Mona + Max are exchanging their roles covering each other with sniper fire comes to mind), but for the most part the between level storytelling methods and dialogue I just thought were totally lame and corny.
I post this not to simply bitch about the parts of the game I didn't like, but more so because I'm interested to see how anyone else felt about the dialogue/story in Max Payne 2, or any other heavily plot-reliant game. There are many other games than Max Payne 2 that are a joy to play, both from a narrative standpoint as well as a gameplay standpoint, but sometimes even the best narration elements can be attroiciously bad. I was just curious to know how common it is for people to get such great enjoyment out of a sub-par or incredibly derivative storyline. Personally, even the games that I will love forever still contain elements that I hate or just make me cringe.
Before I saw Event Horizon, I always thought that the original DOOM would make a GREAT movie. In the right hands, all of the basic concepts for a pretty interesting action adventure movie were there. Granted, DOOM is a mindless and purely action-oriented FPS, but if someone had gotten on the ball and made a movie before the whole "survival horror"/zombie vs. modern technology fad caught on in both video games and movies, I'd always felt a carefully planned DOOM movie would have been great. The problem now is that many of the traits that were first pioneered by DOOM have already been done, and poorly at that, so anything in a DOOM movie made now would probably just seem too cliche and corny.
Hate to respond legitimately to a troll, but he/she brings up an interesting concept. Much like that virus in Snow Crash, (I haven't read that book in ages) but didn't it send human beings into a coma just by seeing/reading some text on a screen? Maybe I'm just a troll virgin and haven't seen anything like this before, but I gotta say the rammifications of this are really bugging me out...
There is no such thing as a "hacker"...Maybe.
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Hackers: Under The Hood
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· Score: 0, Redundant
I remember getting into it with a friend of mine back in high school about the fact that there weren't any "real" hackers. His argument (though not so eloquently spoken at the time) was that the term "hacker" was essentially a media creation, and something only used to get ratings. In other words, whenever someone was brought out into the media as a hacker, they instantly and graciously accepted all the attention, therefore making themselves quite the celebrity. At the time of the argument, I disagreed with him. But now, it doesn't seem to be anything less than the truth. I mean, you gotta think of where these people come from. All this attention is what they crave; getting caught to them is all part of the fun. They might profess themselves to be "liberators of information" or whatever the hell they want, but when it comes down to it they love having their face in the spotlight. It's been my belief that the "hackers" are the ones that NEVER get caught; they know sure as hell what they're doing is illegal and they DO NOT want to get nailed for it. The real "hackers" are the ones we'll never hear about. These folks, on the other hand, just see like people dying for attention. They rely on the uniformed, computer un-savy media and viewing public to place them on pedestals as computer geniuses, when in fact all they are doing is exploiting a few security flaws here and there.
I think Real makes horrible, invasive and all out tastless applications. However, I do not appreciate Apple's often elitist underdog attitude either. I do feel it was in Apple's best interest as a company to not even consider Real's proposal; Real Networks is a complete joke and as far as I'm concerned really have no legitimacy when it comes to ANYTHING software related.
Now, what's to say Mr. Jobs couldn't have turned down this offer without making a completely absurd and arrogant comment stating that as #1, how dare anyone even consider he mingle with the "lesser" #2. There is a certain degree of tact that someone can follow in such interactions, and Mr. Jobs has demonstrated that this is something that he has a complete lack of. Being humble goes a long way in any arena; just because you have the facts to back up an arrogant statement doesn't mean you should make it.
Actually, does anyone remember how much a Square game for the SNES cost? I remember when I pre-ordered my copy of FFVII for PSX and learned the rediculously low price of 40 dollars my jaw nearly hit the floor. Final Fantasy II and III (US) remained steady at their nearly 70 dollar price tag for the entirety they were available in stores.
Did this happen to remind anyone else about the episode of Mr. Show where America campaigns to blow up the moon? It practically has the same premise; bored overdeveloped country has nothing better to do than throw shit out into space and cause some destruction, the only justification for it being the fact that we CAN.
As Sara Silverman's protestor character says..."We're earthlings, let's blow up earth things..."
I don't mean to carry this thread entirely off-topic, but what is with everyone's sudden obsession with the Minibosses lately? Is it because they were featured in wired? I'd heard of them nearly 4 years ago from my dorm roomate, so I'm a little baffled by this sudden interest. Even then, what they were(are) doing wasn't that original; musicians cover video game songs all the time. Look at the OC Remix commuunity, which has been around for god knows how long. I mean, it's all well and good if you like their music and all, but you'd think the type of people who frequent slashdot would already be pretty familiar with the whole videogame music cover gimmick thing. I keep seeing the minibosses regarded as the best thing since sliced bread in regards to videogames/indie-rock/nerd culture/blah blah. It's just irritating, is all. Trendy nonsense when there is so much more interesting stuff going on in regards to musicians and video game music.
It's interesting that this came, as I've been thinking about the reality of piracy (DVD, console game, pc game) a lot more lately in the sense that it has changed quite a bit. When I was a kid, I'd "pirate" an occasional game from my friend or what have you because I wanted to play it and I was a kid WITHOUT ANY MONEY. Now that I'm what's legally considered an adult, it seems that pirating mentality is more based upon getting as much as you can as fast as you can, and not really enjoying it. It's essentially become a fetish; "I have a bigger MP3 collection than you do" or "I ripped 5 XBOX games last week while you only nabbed 3". Just as NanoGator pointed out, when the hell is ANYONE going to have time to play any of these? Like the original poster (jokingly) stated, it's like pirates are storing up for some kind of apocolypse that will miraculously leave the power grid and supplies of tasty food intact so that all the entertainment fetishists can bask in the glory of their hours and hours of renting and ripping from NetFlix.
But he does have a point. It might be a good idea to rethink alltogether using your personal resources for the job (technological or otherwise), or at least not becoming so reliant upon them. What happens when you use a personal tool that REALLY boosts your productivity, then it breaks/gets lost/etc. and you can't afford a new one or something? You're DOOMED! Then the old whipcracka' is asking about his bottom line, and why AREN'T YOU AS PRODUCTIVE LATELY!? WHY IS MY SERVER BROKEN!?!
AHHHHHHHHH!
Anyways, my point is basically that a lot of "non-tech" folks are rather insensitive to how well some nerds can leverage technology to improve their productivity on the job (not to mention make their own lives easier.) So I guess some of us might be sort of screwed; we can't use our own stuff in fear of it eventually getting banned/whatever like our gentleman here, and we probably have a cold chance in hell gettint the employer to understand why a certain piece of gear might be useful...
I meant to watch The Lathe of Heaven when Sci-Fi aired that a few years back, but missed it, so I'm whether or not to have my hopes up or not. I was sort of impartial to their interpretation of Dune, but then again I only saw the first miniseries. A Wizard of Earthsea wasn't the most "dense" of LeGuinn's novels, so hopefully Sci-Fi won't be able to mangle it too bad. This should be sort of interesting to check out; I might be actually excited. Heh...
Plugging into your car with your own laptop and running your own diagnostics? Sounds like a HUGE can of worms and just an all out bad idea. Who's to say that the next time you wrap your car around a tree due to a hardware failure on the car, the manufacturer doesn't just come back and say "There is no proof this individual had not personally tampered with the car's on-board computer, and therefore we cannot be held liable."
Personally, I understand the plight of small-time auto repair shops not being able to work on newer cars because of the onboard computer, but on the other hand with cars getting so complicated its no wonder they are making the computers so hard to access as a protection against liability. One only knows how badly an auto mechanic could accidently hose an onboard computer, or even worse what kind of underhanded nonsense they could pull on your computer to keep you coming back for repairs. That's not to say that the manufacturer isn't doing that to begin with, so who knows I guess...
I'm not sure how many people have checked out the other stuff on their site, but this looks like it has been built with RPG Maker 2000, and I'm not sure if it's even legal to seel games you make with that program. Anyway, this company just seems like a hack; they design a product, get in hot water because a large corporation claims it infringes on their patents, then release it as open source to misdirect things away from the fact that they are trying to turn a profit? Maybe Infinium Labs can learn something here; when their investors start screaming for a goddamn product, they can just say they released it as open source and are waiting for the magic to happen...
Re:Linux Has Travelled Far... In The Wrong Directi
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Linus on Linux in 1994
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· Score: 1
I couldn't agree more. amigoro makes a good point; there is too much concentration on the negatives of Windows-use and not enough concentration on the positives of Linux-use. I think the concentration on Linux should be more about why it is better, then worry about explaining the concept of open source, etc. The problem seems to be that you have too many absurd freaks like RMS and ERS out there yammering on and on about "free software" and whatever other definitions they want to invent on a regular basis, and this type of stuff turns nerds like me away from actually getting into Linux. Maybe some people, like myself, don't feel the need to concern themselves with philosophy all the time. I'm sorry, but I'm not the type of person whose strong sense of conviction is going to keep me focused for 8 hours straight so I can grasp ALL the concepts of a Linux distro install. Yeah, I've installed and played around with several distros of Linux, and yes I'm impressed. I see great potential there. The problem right now, as far as I'm concerned, is that there is too much of a political component to Linux.
Personally, I understand the concept of open source, but I'm sure a lot of people who might be interested in Linux don't. If they could just see the benefits first hand, see how great they can work for them, and THEN be told, "By the way, this was all made by dedicated and talented people in their own free time and as a hobby", I'm sure that would impress a lot of people on that fact alone. Most people need to see it to believe it, and the comments I hear so often here on slashdot comments like "Window users are stupid", and this is a pretty straightforward window into the mentality of a dangerous clique of Linux users out there; the ones who don't really care about a beneficial software movement, bute care more about appearing elitist and more intelligent than all of the "dumb" Windows-using masses. No wonder tech nerds like myself and the regular "dumb" Windows users don't want to touch Linux right now when it means having all this holier-than-thou philosophy being crammed down our/their throats.
All I'm saying is that I think Linux can have great potential, but the problem now is that it is so surrounded in geek philosophy that people would rather just use their Windows machines because it does what they need right now.
I agree with you in regards to the difference between CDs/DVDs/tape and videogame backups, but I think the reason a lot of people use emulators is for nostolgic purposes. Yeah, I'm sure there is some freak SOMEWHERE who actually WANTS to play a GBA game on a 300 dollar Zodiac, but I'd have to argue that the predominant use of emulators is by people who want to play the classics they grew up with but can no longer get their hands on. Myself, for instance. I own a GBA SP and love the system and its game selection, but I aslo have an NES and SNES emulator loaded on my laptop just in case I ever get that "craving" while on the road. Furthermore, I do still own an actual NES and SNES system, with about 20 games or more for each, and have no problem paying a fair price to add to my "physical" game library for these systems.
Speaking of which, I've been in a Gamestop (a used+new video game store here in the states) a few times recently and the employees there tell me they're shipping all of their Gensesis, NES and SNES games back to HQ, whatever that means. My first suspicion was that maybe some major game developers/publishers (Nintendo, for example...) were going to start releasing some of the backcatalogue. From what I understand, the recent Zelda collection that you could get with a Gamecube over the recent holiday season had the system flying off the shelves, and they're releasing a Megaman aniversery collection sometime this summer. Maybe a trend is picking up? Let's hope they can keep things reasonably priced.
I have to say that my love for videogames was spawned by a PC. I had NES and SNES back when they were initially released, but when I saw Wing Commander 2 on a 486 with all that speech (hehehe) back in '92, I was hooked. Since then, a PC has been my primary source of video game entertainment. Until recently, though, I've found myself to be a bit more satisfied with a console experience. Maybe it's because I got an HDTV for XMAS and I'm just still stuck on the novelty of high resolution console gaming, but for the most part I'm finding the console experience more "solid". There seems to be too much politics in modern game development, and it seems to be having the worst effects on PC game developers; Deus Ex 2, anyone? I played that demo for an all of 5 minutes before un-installing that nonsense, and the "dumbing" down of cross-port video games couldn't be more obvious. But then, on the flip side, look at what effect it seems to be having on rather PC-loyal companies like id... Granted, I understand that as far as development goes it could make sense to only support cooperative on a console and leave it up to loyal fans to devise a system for PC, but I've always trusted companies like id to release things how THEY want, and then watch the magic of mods and what not take over after the games release. A move like this shows how much of an influence the video game market as a whole has become...
...which leads me to the point of this rant. With consoles seeming to blend so much closer to PCs as far as multiplayer and even hardware architecture, it seems like it is only going to get worse. So, my concern is this: why bother spending so much money on computer hardware ($400 for a video card? Give me a break...) when you can just wait for QUALITY games to be released for your respective console? Granted, many of the cross-port games are just terrible and not worth the media they are pressed on, but it seems that the general consensus is that you'll be able to get all the "better" games released on your console. Especially if you own all three, like me. I mean, spending around $600 to get all three systems is probably what it could cost me right now to upgrade my machine to something that could play DOOM 3 at a framerate comparable to how smoothly it may run on my XBOX...
Please don't get me wrong; I do think the PC is a much better format for gaming. If you want to talk graphics, they are completely unmatched to anything on a PC, and PCs have the ability to configure game interfaces so that ANYONE can get a comfortable system set up (not to mention that the control schemes in FPS on a PC is the most precise setup you can get anywhere). It's just that as far as money and affordability goes, it seems like the best bet for gamers is to just invest in whatever consoles are dominating the market. Now, if you have the cash flow to AFFORD a new machine every six months, that is an entirely different story...
Just my 2 cents... I'm interested to hear anyone else's feelings on this matter.
So, Apple is not a monopoly, therefore they can do whatever underhanded shit Microsoft does and get away with it because 'Hey, they're the hip underdog!'?
If you consider Apple to make a superior product, fine. I'm not arguing with you. I'm glad you're happy with your purchase. But please, you make a value judgement like this in the same breath you criticize Microsoft:
Apple is not not a monopoly and therefore does not have to abide by the same rules as Microsoft
Try practicing what you preach, already. If the tables were turned, and Apple had the same quality product but the market share that MS does, would that be OK? If you're going to throw out words like monopoly left and right, don't use the fuzzy logic demonstrated in the quote above. It just gives Apple users a bad name. Though I think Apple makes a great product and I'm sure I'd love using one, the user base mentality that is so often demonstrated by people like yourself drives me away every time. It sickens me... It's a completely manufactured "clique" on behalf of Apple, and I'd much prefer to buy my computer based on what I want to do with it rather than getting one to be a member of a "subculture".
Slashdot Mirror
That's true, but I'm sure Nintendo kept a handle on the quality of their games a little more intimately than just screening the review sites. Someone in the article even stated that the best way to determine the best games to release under your liscence is to play them. Personally I think this should be the goal strategy for any company trying to produce a game under their intellectual properties. Saying that this approach might be too expensive, take too much time, etc. just seems to be a cop-out as well as illustrate the fact that the one selling their liscence is only interested in making some cash off of their product anyway; that they don't want to go that extra mile for quality control, they'd rather just unload the responsibility on someone else so they aren't accountable.
The result, insists Jason Hall, senior vp of Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, will be better games.
Wrong, Mr. Hall. I think your result will be less games.
I'm no professional game developer, but as far as I'm concerned I'd rather not even risk going with a liscenced product if it means I might have to shell out a rather hefty amount of money because the "reviews" say my product sucked. Hopefully, the rest of the game development community will use this as an excuse to explore some fresh ideas, and instead of trying to hawk terrible games based on already familiar liscences they might take a chance at being creative again.
Anyways, the Matrix is a piss-poor example for Atari to cite. That game only sold because of the movie, but coincidentally the movies sucked too, so in the end I'm sure neither Atari nor WB lost anything on that one. A better example would be to talk about the horrendous series of Simpsons games up until Hit & Run (not an original title, but definitely several steps above a game like Virtual Bart... Dear Lord...).
I first learned of these sites today also, and after checking them out for a bit when I was supposed to be working, I also felt that they were incredibly one-sided and their attack strategy was totally missing the point. They brought out factual aspects of Michael Moore's filmaking to discredit him, where his points (as stated above) are a bit more artistic and require a bit of thought to get.
However, I thought the sites did bring up a very crucial aspect of Michael Moore's filmaking that has turned me off from him since Roger & Me and that is the fact that the man is a bit TOO artistic when it comes to making a documentary. Often times, he presents the facts in a way that tries to embarass the other side. He is incredibly partial to his own stance, and as someone had posted here earlier on slashdot, his movies are more about his opinions that the actual truth. Now, there is nothing wrong with making movies in this fashion, and I think he does a pretty good job, but the problem is that he sells and presents them as DOCUMENTARIES. People, myself included, see these movies for the first time and have a mindset of much of what they are seeing is fact. Now I'm not saying that documentaries should be inherently interpreted as fact, but I think the basic format of documentaries/reality tv/whatever has the tendency to allow people to subconciously turn their thought processes off and just sort of "suck in" for bit, and I think that Moore knows this and uses it to his advantage.
Bottom line is, just like anybody else, the man is trying to sell a product, and it all comes down to marketing, marketing, marketing. He knows his market and his "anti" market, and they both make him tons of money. I don't have a problem with that, I guess. The only problem I have is with him trying to tout himself as some kind of ingenious filmaker who sees so much more than "average" Americans do, and he just so happened to be generous enough to take the time and make the documentaries to show us.
Once I finally got my hands on a Bluetooth enabled laptop a few months ago, I've been able to send ringtones to my T610 without any problems whatsoever. The best part is that I can use practically any MIDI I find online, which means I don't have to settle for the tripe that is otherwise "offered" by my cell phone provider.
Anyways, I've found that video game MIDIs, particularly SNES, make the best ringtones. The instruments carry over well to a ring, there are hundreds and thousands of available songs you can get online, and they're just all out fun.
So, I don't really see why a community like slashdot would really care that they can't put the latest Outkast or 50 Cent ring on their phone. There are much better rings out there. Just be courteous and turn those goddamn things off before entering a movie theatre or something, cause I can tell you right fucking now I don't want to hear Kefka's theme from FF6 blasting out of your phone right as a J. Lo-portrayed Samus Aran is putting the hurt down on some aliens in the next big John Woo movie.
Not that our phones are ringing anyway...
"...we played until our wrists just couldn't move the mouse any more..."
That's disgusting...
No, it doesn't necessarily weird me out, but it's a pretty silly statistic to analyze I think. Back when I had my NES and SNES, I took those everywhere. Moved it all over my house, took it to family gatherings, whatever. And this was more than 10 years ago, and I was just a kid. Why would an XBOX room visits stat be any more important today than it was 10 or 15 years ago? This seriously is no insight whatsoever... Maybe they expected people to buy an XBOX every time they left their house?
I think I have to disagree with you on this one...
In a copy of Wired a few months back Peter Jackson made the comment that the movie theatre experience is becoming easier and easier to simulate in our homes. Large screen TVs, HD, surround sound systems, all of which are becoming a lot more affordable and easier for people to set up themselves. So, what he suggested was that the next challenge for Hollywood was to get people out of their homes and back into theatre seats.
I personally found Jackson's comment to be pretty accurate because of the HUGE changes undergoing the movie industry right now. Just take a look at DVDs. So much effort seems to go into DVD releases of movies that seemed to pretty much suck in the theatres. Just a few months ago, the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake comes out with a 30 dollar special edition, and I'm sure a ton of people bought it. Sadly, maybe even as many people who went to see the movie. So, right there the movie studio has an income three times that of what was ever possible for them to make in theatres. I never saw the movie, but it looked terrible, and when I happened to see it in the store for such a high price and someone actually buying it, it just got me thinking how the real money isn't so much in the theatres anymore at all.
While I understand about what you're saying about the movie experience not really changing, I don't know if it really makes sense. I mean, yeah you can rent a movie and watch it at home on a low-grade color TV and get the same experience you would back in 1983 or something, but do you really want to? The same applies for video games. Sure, you could whip out your Atari and treat your self to a game of E.T., but I'm sure sometime you're going to want to be able to play your XBOX on an HDTV with surround sound, and play against some schmuck 400 miles away. While I still play my Super Nintendo whenever the fancy strikes me, I still have and love playing my "big three" next gen systems. The bottom line is that the movie and video game industries cater to a consumerist culture, and whether you choose to participate in that is of your own accord, and more power to you either way. But with so much money to be made from idiots all about their creature comforts (myself included), the desire for high end technology for watching movies at home has driven the movie industry to try to give consumers (or at least make them think they're getting) more bang for their buck.
Please tell me how it is not sexist to compare a completely unrealistically proportioned female in sexy ass-pants to a middle-aged scumbag trying to get some action, and declaring the latter as beginning to "cross the line"?
This is a lot like all the hubbub people made about the fucking superbowl "scandal". You have sports institutions like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders or whatever dressed as clad as legally possible for national TV, and then some "racy" pop star busts out her breast for all of America to see and it's an outrage? Come on!
Nudity and sex is all about context, and being an American it seems that too many people get bent out of shape about someone being naked, and it's seriously going to warp the minds of our youth. Nudity is declared as innapropriate, but it's completely OK for every other (if not all) female character on TV to be sporting some sort of cleavage or ass-revealing outfit? Leisure Suit Larry is an ADULT-ORIENTED and sexually themed game, thus I hope we get to see some guys nuts and maybe a rediculously-sized breast getting thrown across our screens here and there. That's the appeal of games like that, right? (I don't play them; someone help me out here...) What I don't understand is why do I happen to turn on some tripe like CSI and see a woman clad in the most "professionally-appropriate" revealing outfit and that's "OK"?
Personally, I think sex is overused in all aspects of American pop culture. But at the same time, the media portrays it as controversial and extreme, and that's why it sells. People always talk about the sexual revolution, blah blah blah, but all the "progress" made in America that ever seems to happen is just allowing women to be able to show more and more of their bodies, and the twisted fools that read magazines like Maxim to oggle over them and continue objectifying, and I think this article only illustrates what kind of a double standard these "journalists" help to create.
I honestly don't mean this as a knock on the writers/designers of Max Payne 2, as I thought it was a phenominal game, but I found the story AND the dialogue to be incredibly cheesy. However, it didn't seem to prevent my enjoyment of the game, or hinder any emotional response. I actually felt like I had something invested in the game, and felt authentic anger towards the games antagonist. However, it was only the "in-game" story elements I found to be at all rewarding (the portion of the game where Mona + Max are exchanging their roles covering each other with sniper fire comes to mind), but for the most part the between level storytelling methods and dialogue I just thought were totally lame and corny.
I post this not to simply bitch about the parts of the game I didn't like, but more so because I'm interested to see how anyone else felt about the dialogue/story in Max Payne 2, or any other heavily plot-reliant game. There are many other games than Max Payne 2 that are a joy to play, both from a narrative standpoint as well as a gameplay standpoint, but sometimes even the best narration elements can be attroiciously bad. I was just curious to know how common it is for people to get such great enjoyment out of a sub-par or incredibly derivative storyline. Personally, even the games that I will love forever still contain elements that I hate or just make me cringe.
Before I saw Event Horizon, I always thought that the original DOOM would make a GREAT movie. In the right hands, all of the basic concepts for a pretty interesting action adventure movie were there. Granted, DOOM is a mindless and purely action-oriented FPS, but if someone had gotten on the ball and made a movie before the whole "survival horror"/zombie vs. modern technology fad caught on in both video games and movies, I'd always felt a carefully planned DOOM movie would have been great. The problem now is that many of the traits that were first pioneered by DOOM have already been done, and poorly at that, so anything in a DOOM movie made now would probably just seem too cliche and corny.
Hate to respond legitimately to a troll, but he/she brings up an interesting concept. Much like that virus in Snow Crash, (I haven't read that book in ages) but didn't it send human beings into a coma just by seeing/reading some text on a screen? Maybe I'm just a troll virgin and haven't seen anything like this before, but I gotta say the rammifications of this are really bugging me out...
I remember getting into it with a friend of mine back in high school about the fact that there weren't any "real" hackers. His argument (though not so eloquently spoken at the time) was that the term "hacker" was essentially a media creation, and something only used to get ratings. In other words, whenever someone was brought out into the media as a hacker, they instantly and graciously accepted all the attention, therefore making themselves quite the celebrity. At the time of the argument, I disagreed with him. But now, it doesn't seem to be anything less than the truth. I mean, you gotta think of where these people come from. All this attention is what they crave; getting caught to them is all part of the fun. They might profess themselves to be "liberators of information" or whatever the hell they want, but when it comes down to it they love having their face in the spotlight. It's been my belief that the "hackers" are the ones that NEVER get caught; they know sure as hell what they're doing is illegal and they DO NOT want to get nailed for it. The real "hackers" are the ones we'll never hear about. These folks, on the other hand, just see like people dying for attention. They rely on the uniformed, computer un-savy media and viewing public to place them on pedestals as computer geniuses, when in fact all they are doing is exploiting a few security flaws here and there.
I think Real makes horrible, invasive and all out tastless applications. However, I do not appreciate Apple's often elitist underdog attitude either. I do feel it was in Apple's best interest as a company to not even consider Real's proposal; Real Networks is a complete joke and as far as I'm concerned really have no legitimacy when it comes to ANYTHING software related.
Now, what's to say Mr. Jobs couldn't have turned down this offer without making a completely absurd and arrogant comment stating that as #1, how dare anyone even consider he mingle with the "lesser" #2. There is a certain degree of tact that someone can follow in such interactions, and Mr. Jobs has demonstrated that this is something that he has a complete lack of. Being humble goes a long way in any arena; just because you have the facts to back up an arrogant statement doesn't mean you should make it.
Actually, does anyone remember how much a Square game for the SNES cost? I remember when I pre-ordered my copy of FFVII for PSX and learned the rediculously low price of 40 dollars my jaw nearly hit the floor. Final Fantasy II and III (US) remained steady at their nearly 70 dollar price tag for the entirety they were available in stores.
Did this happen to remind anyone else about the episode of Mr. Show where America campaigns to blow up the moon? It practically has the same premise; bored overdeveloped country has nothing better to do than throw shit out into space and cause some destruction, the only justification for it being the fact that we CAN.
As Sara Silverman's protestor character says..."We're earthlings, let's blow up earth things..."
I don't mean to carry this thread entirely off-topic, but what is with everyone's sudden obsession with the Minibosses lately? Is it because they were featured in wired? I'd heard of them nearly 4 years ago from my dorm roomate, so I'm a little baffled by this sudden interest. Even then, what they were(are) doing wasn't that original; musicians cover video game songs all the time. Look at the OC Remix commuunity, which has been around for god knows how long. I mean, it's all well and good if you like their music and all, but you'd think the type of people who frequent slashdot would already be pretty familiar with the whole videogame music cover gimmick thing. I keep seeing the minibosses regarded as the best thing since sliced bread in regards to videogames/indie-rock/nerd culture/blah blah. It's just irritating, is all. Trendy nonsense when there is so much more interesting stuff going on in regards to musicians and video game music.
It's interesting that this came, as I've been thinking about the reality of piracy (DVD, console game, pc game) a lot more lately in the sense that it has changed quite a bit. When I was a kid, I'd "pirate" an occasional game from my friend or what have you because I wanted to play it and I was a kid WITHOUT ANY MONEY. Now that I'm what's legally considered an adult, it seems that pirating mentality is more based upon getting as much as you can as fast as you can, and not really enjoying it. It's essentially become a fetish; "I have a bigger MP3 collection than you do" or "I ripped 5 XBOX games last week while you only nabbed 3". Just as NanoGator pointed out, when the hell is ANYONE going to have time to play any of these? Like the original poster (jokingly) stated, it's like pirates are storing up for some kind of apocolypse that will miraculously leave the power grid and supplies of tasty food intact so that all the entertainment fetishists can bask in the glory of their hours and hours of renting and ripping from NetFlix.
Lazy bastard...
But he does have a point. It might be a good idea to rethink alltogether using your personal resources for the job (technological or otherwise), or at least not becoming so reliant upon them. What happens when you use a personal tool that REALLY boosts your productivity, then it breaks/gets lost/etc. and you can't afford a new one or something? You're DOOMED! Then the old whipcracka' is asking about his bottom line, and why AREN'T YOU AS PRODUCTIVE LATELY!? WHY IS MY SERVER BROKEN!?!
AHHHHHHHHH!
Anyways, my point is basically that a lot of "non-tech" folks are rather insensitive to how well some nerds can leverage technology to improve their productivity on the job (not to mention make their own lives easier.) So I guess some of us might be sort of screwed; we can't use our own stuff in fear of it eventually getting banned/whatever like our gentleman here, and we probably have a cold chance in hell gettint the employer to understand why a certain piece of gear might be useful...
I meant to watch The Lathe of Heaven when Sci-Fi aired that a few years back, but missed it, so I'm whether or not to have my hopes up or not. I was sort of impartial to their interpretation of Dune, but then again I only saw the first miniseries. A Wizard of Earthsea wasn't the most "dense" of LeGuinn's novels, so hopefully Sci-Fi won't be able to mangle it too bad. This should be sort of interesting to check out; I might be actually excited. Heh...
Plugging into your car with your own laptop and running your own diagnostics? Sounds like a HUGE can of worms and just an all out bad idea. Who's to say that the next time you wrap your car around a tree due to a hardware failure on the car, the manufacturer doesn't just come back and say "There is no proof this individual had not personally tampered with the car's on-board computer, and therefore we cannot be held liable."
Personally, I understand the plight of small-time auto repair shops not being able to work on newer cars because of the onboard computer, but on the other hand with cars getting so complicated its no wonder they are making the computers so hard to access as a protection against liability. One only knows how badly an auto mechanic could accidently hose an onboard computer, or even worse what kind of underhanded nonsense they could pull on your computer to keep you coming back for repairs. That's not to say that the manufacturer isn't doing that to begin with, so who knows I guess...
I'm not sure how many people have checked out the other stuff on their site, but this looks like it has been built with RPG Maker 2000, and I'm not sure if it's even legal to seel games you make with that program. Anyway, this company just seems like a hack; they design a product, get in hot water because a large corporation claims it infringes on their patents, then release it as open source to misdirect things away from the fact that they are trying to turn a profit? Maybe Infinium Labs can learn something here; when their investors start screaming for a goddamn product, they can just say they released it as open source and are waiting for the magic to happen...
I couldn't agree more. amigoro makes a good point; there is too much concentration on the negatives of Windows-use and not enough concentration on the positives of Linux-use. I think the concentration on Linux should be more about why it is better, then worry about explaining the concept of open source, etc. The problem seems to be that you have too many absurd freaks like RMS and ERS out there yammering on and on about "free software" and whatever other definitions they want to invent on a regular basis, and this type of stuff turns nerds like me away from actually getting into Linux. Maybe some people, like myself, don't feel the need to concern themselves with philosophy all the time. I'm sorry, but I'm not the type of person whose strong sense of conviction is going to keep me focused for 8 hours straight so I can grasp ALL the concepts of a Linux distro install. Yeah, I've installed and played around with several distros of Linux, and yes I'm impressed. I see great potential there. The problem right now, as far as I'm concerned, is that there is too much of a political component to Linux.
Personally, I understand the concept of open source, but I'm sure a lot of people who might be interested in Linux don't. If they could just see the benefits first hand, see how great they can work for them, and THEN be told, "By the way, this was all made by dedicated and talented people in their own free time and as a hobby", I'm sure that would impress a lot of people on that fact alone. Most people need to see it to believe it, and the comments I hear so often here on slashdot comments like "Window users are stupid", and this is a pretty straightforward window into the mentality of a dangerous clique of Linux users out there; the ones who don't really care about a beneficial software movement, bute care more about appearing elitist and more intelligent than all of the "dumb" Windows-using masses. No wonder tech nerds like myself and the regular "dumb" Windows users don't want to touch Linux right now when it means having all this holier-than-thou philosophy being crammed down our/their throats.
All I'm saying is that I think Linux can have great potential, but the problem now is that it is so surrounded in geek philosophy that people would rather just use their Windows machines because it does what they need right now.
I agree with you in regards to the difference between CDs/DVDs/tape and videogame backups, but I think the reason a lot of people use emulators is for nostolgic purposes. Yeah, I'm sure there is some freak SOMEWHERE who actually WANTS to play a GBA game on a 300 dollar Zodiac, but I'd have to argue that the predominant use of emulators is by people who want to play the classics they grew up with but can no longer get their hands on. Myself, for instance. I own a GBA SP and love the system and its game selection, but I aslo have an NES and SNES emulator loaded on my laptop just in case I ever get that "craving" while on the road. Furthermore, I do still own an actual NES and SNES system, with about 20 games or more for each, and have no problem paying a fair price to add to my "physical" game library for these systems.
Speaking of which, I've been in a Gamestop (a used+new video game store here in the states) a few times recently and the employees there tell me they're shipping all of their Gensesis, NES and SNES games back to HQ, whatever that means. My first suspicion was that maybe some major game developers/publishers (Nintendo, for example...) were going to start releasing some of the backcatalogue. From what I understand, the recent Zelda collection that you could get with a Gamecube over the recent holiday season had the system flying off the shelves, and they're releasing a Megaman aniversery collection sometime this summer. Maybe a trend is picking up? Let's hope they can keep things reasonably priced.
I have to say that my love for videogames was spawned by a PC. I had NES and SNES back when they were initially released, but when I saw Wing Commander 2 on a 486 with all that speech (hehehe) back in '92, I was hooked. Since then, a PC has been my primary source of video game entertainment. Until recently, though, I've found myself to be a bit more satisfied with a console experience. Maybe it's because I got an HDTV for XMAS and I'm just still stuck on the novelty of high resolution console gaming, but for the most part I'm finding the console experience more "solid". There seems to be too much politics in modern game development, and it seems to be having the worst effects on PC game developers; Deus Ex 2, anyone? I played that demo for an all of 5 minutes before un-installing that nonsense, and the "dumbing" down of cross-port video games couldn't be more obvious. But then, on the flip side, look at what effect it seems to be having on rather PC-loyal companies like id... Granted, I understand that as far as development goes it could make sense to only support cooperative on a console and leave it up to loyal fans to devise a system for PC, but I've always trusted companies like id to release things how THEY want, and then watch the magic of mods and what not take over after the games release. A move like this shows how much of an influence the video game market as a whole has become...
...which leads me to the point of this rant. With consoles seeming to blend so much closer to PCs as far as multiplayer and even hardware architecture, it seems like it is only going to get worse. So, my concern is this: why bother spending so much money on computer hardware ($400 for a video card? Give me a break...) when you can just wait for QUALITY games to be released for your respective console? Granted, many of the cross-port games are just terrible and not worth the media they are pressed on, but it seems that the general consensus is that you'll be able to get all the "better" games released on your console. Especially if you own all three, like me. I mean, spending around $600 to get all three systems is probably what it could cost me right now to upgrade my machine to something that could play DOOM 3 at a framerate comparable to how smoothly it may run on my XBOX...
Please don't get me wrong; I do think the PC is a much better format for gaming. If you want to talk graphics, they are completely unmatched to anything on a PC, and PCs have the ability to configure game interfaces so that ANYONE can get a comfortable system set up (not to mention that the control schemes in FPS on a PC is the most precise setup you can get anywhere). It's just that as far as money and affordability goes, it seems like the best bet for gamers is to just invest in whatever consoles are dominating the market. Now, if you have the cash flow to AFFORD a new machine every six months, that is an entirely different story...
Just my 2 cents... I'm interested to hear anyone else's feelings on this matter.
So, Apple is not a monopoly, therefore they can do whatever underhanded shit Microsoft does and get away with it because 'Hey, they're the hip underdog!'?
If you consider Apple to make a superior product, fine. I'm not arguing with you. I'm glad you're happy with your purchase. But please, you make a value judgement like this in the same breath you criticize Microsoft:
Apple is not not a monopoly and therefore does not have to abide by the same rules as Microsoft
Try practicing what you preach, already. If the tables were turned, and Apple had the same quality product but the market share that MS does, would that be OK? If you're going to throw out words like monopoly left and right, don't use the fuzzy logic demonstrated in the quote above. It just gives Apple users a bad name. Though I think Apple makes a great product and I'm sure I'd love using one, the user base mentality that is so often demonstrated by people like yourself drives me away every time. It sickens me... It's a completely manufactured "clique" on behalf of Apple, and I'd much prefer to buy my computer based on what I want to do with it rather than getting one to be a member of a "subculture".