If it came up with disc read errors etc. out of the box, perhaps he should've either returned it to where he bought it for a replacement / refund, or contacted Sony about it, as that definatley sounds like it had a fault.
I gather from other Slashdot discussions that early US PS2s are rather infamous for disc reading problems, but SCEA were good at replacing them when they did have them.
(I have a mate with a "day 1" UK PS2, it plays DVDs and PS1 games fine, and indeed is still in perfect working ortder, but it would be a later model to "day 1" US PS2s).
I think Amazon.co.uk have had the page up for ages anyway (with the ability to preorder), it's not a new appearance. Presumably it was put up at one point when it actually looked like the game would come out (the screenshots certainly look rather old), and it's stayed up. They probably just stuck the release date in December as a placeholder or something.
I'd say £25 is about the average price for a new PC game in the UK, at least if you buy online (console games are more expensive, as is buying at retail). I don't know what the normal price for PC games are in the US, but I'd guess DNF would be that price at launch.
Video games in the UK are more expensive generally of course, partly becuase of tax, and partly becuase the Pound is strong at the moment. Ie: A new console game's RRP is generally £40 ($70), I don't think the US price is quite that high for example.
Seeing as it's fashionable to point out even the most obscure errors in Slashdot stories, I should point out that GunCon is Namco's trademark for their PlayStation and PlayStation 2 lightguns. Something like lightgun or gun controller would be a more appropriate generic term. (I'm not sure if a Revolution controller based gun would actually be a "lightgun").
Anyway, everyone knows that the Menacer is the ultimate name for a lightgun, folowed by such classics as the Light Phaser, Zapper and Super Scope. Peripherals - they don't name'em like they used to.
The pictures chosen suck as well. Why is a European Mortal Kombat II box in a section about US ratings (albeit around where MK is being discussed)? I like the bit where they imply the BBFC has only given 15 and 18 ratings to games[1], then show a game (Lethal Enforcers) with a PG rating. It's like they have a template that has an image in the middle, and they've thrown the first image that comes to hand into it, without any thought if the image is correct for that section of text.
[1] Addmitedly most games that qualify for BBFC ratings do get 15 or 18 certificates, but there are exceptions, like SCEE's Singstar games (U and PG), and well, Lethal Enforcers (PG).
I'd hope they'd be flexible enough to let developers use keyboards and mice in games where appropriate (Dreamcast and PS2 already did AFAIK). But Microsoft might still be hung up with this "it's not a computer!" thing they had with the first Xbox.
But I'd hope any sensbile developer keeps K+M and joypad players seperate for online play though, at least in any kind of ranked situation. Keyboard + Mouse does allow for faster, more accurate reactions (with the downside of being tied to a desk, and therefore rather cumbersome for split screen games with mates on a sofa etc.), so any keyboard players would be at a rather big advantage to joypad players (of course for unranked / custom games anything goes).
The general joypad is sometimes a bit of a "jack of all trades, master of none", but the fact is it's the only controller you can garuntee console players will have, and it would be wrong to put people in a situation where buying an extra contoller put people at a massive advantage.
It's only partially backwards compatible though, it's not the near total backwards compatability of the GameBoy series, the Nintendo DS, or the PlayStation 2.
It's rather disapointing really. I think it's a bit obvious that they got caught with their trousers down, they thought they could get away with no backwards compatability, but it turns out to be one of the main selling points (even if people don't use it much, it would seem rather bad compared to the PS3 and Revolution), so they've implemented this half-assed "most popular" approach.
I do agree a hard disk is probably needed for Xbox 1 compatability, whatever way it's done, though, as most XBox 1 games (at least the exclusive ones) use it for caches etc., which would be hard or near impossible to emulate in RAM or Flash.
Well, I was more pointing this out becuase some "fanboys" seem to think that Nintendo are basically going to put their entire back catalouge (including 3rd party games) out for free.
I suppose a cheap, legit way to get old games is good, but I do wish Nintendo would stop flogging their back catalouge constantly. Although that's more been a problem with the GameBoy Advance.
I only have a UK price list, but in the UK official Xbox controllers currently have an RRP of £25. The RRP of the wired 360 controller is... £25. (The wireless controller RRP is about the same as the Nintendo Wavebird).
Perhaps the grandparent is comparing a store's discounted cost (the RRP may be £25, but Amazon have them for £21, I can probably find it cheaper if I look harder) to an RRP?
Well, I think these are the final release dates. It would probably be a major PR blow to pull back now. (I don't think Sony ever set it in stone that the PSP was launching at the same time in Europe and the US, they just hinted heavily, then went back on it). Plus Microsoft have been saying they're going for a near worldwide (or at least the 3 major markets) launch for months, they've had plenty of time to plan this.
I saw the launch issue of the UK Offical Xbox 360 Magazine in WHSmiths today as well, which does point to a UK launch being soon.
And why do I suspect that this download service may involve paying to download these games (or at least some of them). I kinda doubt Nintendo (especially Nintendo) are going to suddenly start giving it all away for free.
Project Gotham Racing 2 is good as well, Jet Set Radio Future, Outrun 2, and a few others. The Xbox has had quite a lot of good titles, although I'm not sure if many will be remembered as true classics, probably just very good games. Although Outrun 2 is a true classic already in my mind.
The Xbox usually has the nicest versions of multi-platform titles as well.
I'm a child of the '90s, and I personally find normal controllers are quite good for most games (perhaps I find them more useable becuase I grew up with them), but for some games like 2D fighters, you can't beat a joystick. I really like my Dreamcast Arcade Stick, I wish I could find something similar for my Xbox, the cheap Gamester one I found is too small, it won't sit on my lap nicely, and just feels wrong.
Another correction is that the ELSPA system was replaced by the pan-European PEGI system quite a while before GTA:SA was released (well, it's nearly pan-European, there are still a few places with their own systems).
Re:*cough* Halo-killer *cough*
on
GoldenEye:Source
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I agree, the Timesplitters games are definatley spiritual successors to Goldeneye.
I'm surprised it hasn't had more kudos really. It's a fantastic deathmatch game, with tons of weapons, characters and game modes. Although TS2 (at least, I haven't played the others much) suffers from the console game problem of having to unlock stuff through single player play for multiplayer, which can grate a bit.
The first article on the list is kinda interesting, I thought some PS2 games already supported USB keyboards and mice, so the PS3 supporting them would'nt be that surprsing, if the USB ports are still there.
(Phantasy Star Online on the Xbox and Gamecube also supported keyboards).
In other news, everyone has known that Halo 3 won't be an Xbox 360 launch title for months.
I've played a lot of Halo 2 on Live. I've not really played the single player game since the one play through I did when I first got the game.
I'd say this article is mostly quite good, pointing out the gripes with Halo 2's online aspects. Although I'm not sure if the weapon controlling is as much of an issue, I've not had that much of a problem, it usually only comes into play if you're already being beaten, or on Collossus, with it's stupid weapon layout.
The Plasma Pistol (and the incredably cheap "noob combo" it leads to) is the real "completley broken" bit IMO. It's tracking is way too good, it seems to be almost impossible to dodge it. The fact it kills an entire overshield is a bit OTT as well, just taking one sheild bar off, or dropping the player down to a normal shield would be less annoying IMO.
Vehicles are probably a touch too hard to take down, but luckily the real bastard (the Scorpian, with) is only on one map AFAIK, and that has two rocket launchers about to help counter it.
The fact that the matchmaking system apparently prefers hosts in the US is annoying for people in the UK, as some weapons like the Shotgun and Sword are ver badly affected by lag. It often seems like it takes one point blank shotgun blast then a meele attack to (hopefully) kill someone, whilst other people can kill me in one shot six feet away.
If you want to go with that route, where you never seeing the Cheif's face, it's probably be better just to get a random bloke to wear the suit, and hire the same guy who does the voice in the games. Kinda like what George Lucas did with Darth Vader, James Earl Jones didn't go around in the suit, they got David Prowse to do that bit.
Cortana could be handled similarly, after all, she's a computer program, there's no reason why she couldn't be a CGI character.
Although I somehow think Hollywood types would probably want big names for the lead roles, rather than have them as both obscure voice actors / stand in combos. Personally I'm not too fussed, as long as it's a reasonable film.
If they have any of the Chief's early history, you'd have to see his face anyway, as he wasn't born in his Mjolinar armour (the Mister Chief is a different story of course).
I don't think special effects are going to be a problem, assuming they have a reasonably budget and a competant effects house, a horde of eight foot tall aliens are going to be easy.
There weren't any posts when I made it either, it's not my fault if ahlf a dozen other people decided to make similar (but inferior, in my opinion) jokes at the same time.
Didn't the:-) give you a clue?
Now this really is a Troll, or Flamebait, or just an angry person at keyboard.
2. Marathon 2 ran on Windows PC's (although, bafflingly, it would not allow you play on a cross-platform LAN with Mac users.)
Wasn't Marathon before TCP/IP became pretty much universal though? I'd guess for a game of that era the Mac version probably uses AppleTalk, and the PC version IPX for networking. Although I don't have a copy to check.
Linky, and cue Firefox users complaining about Gecko's abysmal performance with certain design elements (but it's open source, so people can fix the problems! That've been there for about five years! Go go open source!).
I suppose it's fairly informationless,[1] although there is a link to a page from the "Bible" Bungie have prepared, which is vaugely interesting for Halo nuts (like me).
[1] Condensed version: Hollywood types wanted to make a Halo movie. We held back, and were advised to write our own script, and not to sign all the rights away. We got Alex Garland. He's written some good books and movies, and like Halo. We say the scripts great. Fox and Universal are the studios producing it.
Can someone inform me when Microsoft / Bungie are travelling back in time, so I know when to go to Blockbuster and borrow the DVD that'll be out by now in the new timeline.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
If it came up with disc read errors etc. out of the box, perhaps he should've either returned it to where he bought it for a replacement / refund, or contacted Sony about it, as that definatley sounds like it had a fault.
I gather from other Slashdot discussions that early US PS2s are rather infamous for disc reading problems, but SCEA were good at replacing them when they did have them.
(I have a mate with a "day 1" UK PS2, it plays DVDs and PS1 games fine, and indeed is still in perfect working ortder, but it would be a later model to "day 1" US PS2s).
I think Amazon.co.uk have had the page up for ages anyway (with the ability to preorder), it's not a new appearance. Presumably it was put up at one point when it actually looked like the game would come out (the screenshots certainly look rather old), and it's stayed up. They probably just stuck the release date in December as a placeholder or something.
I'd say £25 is about the average price for a new PC game in the UK, at least if you buy online (console games are more expensive, as is buying at retail). I don't know what the normal price for PC games are in the US, but I'd guess DNF would be that price at launch.
Video games in the UK are more expensive generally of course, partly becuase of tax, and partly becuase the Pound is strong at the moment. Ie: A new console game's RRP is generally £40 ($70), I don't think the US price is quite that high for example.
Seeing as it's fashionable to point out even the most obscure errors in Slashdot stories, I should point out that GunCon is Namco's trademark for their PlayStation and PlayStation 2 lightguns. Something like lightgun or gun controller would be a more appropriate generic term. (I'm not sure if a Revolution controller based gun would actually be a "lightgun").
Anyway, everyone knows that the Menacer is the ultimate name for a lightgun, folowed by such classics as the Light Phaser, Zapper and Super Scope. Peripherals - they don't name'em like they used to.
The pictures chosen suck as well. Why is a European Mortal Kombat II box in a section about US ratings (albeit around where MK is being discussed)? I like the bit where they imply the BBFC has only given 15 and 18 ratings to games[1], then show a game (Lethal Enforcers) with a PG rating. It's like they have a template that has an image in the middle, and they've thrown the first image that comes to hand into it, without any thought if the image is correct for that section of text.
[1] Addmitedly most games that qualify for BBFC ratings do get 15 or 18 certificates, but there are exceptions, like SCEE's Singstar games (U and PG), and well, Lethal Enforcers (PG).
Dunno, if you're lucky it'll be December 2nd, in the traditional "Australia and New Zealand are part of Europe" thing. Otherwise, I don't know.
I'd hope they'd be flexible enough to let developers use keyboards and mice in games where appropriate (Dreamcast and PS2 already did AFAIK). But Microsoft might still be hung up with this "it's not a computer!" thing they had with the first Xbox.
But I'd hope any sensbile developer keeps K+M and joypad players seperate for online play though, at least in any kind of ranked situation. Keyboard + Mouse does allow for faster, more accurate reactions (with the downside of being tied to a desk, and therefore rather cumbersome for split screen games with mates on a sofa etc.), so any keyboard players would be at a rather big advantage to joypad players (of course for unranked / custom games anything goes).
The general joypad is sometimes a bit of a "jack of all trades, master of none", but the fact is it's the only controller you can garuntee console players will have, and it would be wrong to put people in a situation where buying an extra contoller put people at a massive advantage.
It's only partially backwards compatible though, it's not the near total backwards compatability of the GameBoy series, the Nintendo DS, or the PlayStation 2.
It's rather disapointing really. I think it's a bit obvious that they got caught with their trousers down, they thought they could get away with no backwards compatability, but it turns out to be one of the main selling points (even if people don't use it much, it would seem rather bad compared to the PS3 and Revolution), so they've implemented this half-assed "most popular" approach.
I do agree a hard disk is probably needed for Xbox 1 compatability, whatever way it's done, though, as most XBox 1 games (at least the exclusive ones) use it for caches etc., which would be hard or near impossible to emulate in RAM or Flash.
Well, I was more pointing this out becuase some "fanboys" seem to think that Nintendo are basically going to put their entire back catalouge (including 3rd party games) out for free.
I suppose a cheap, legit way to get old games is good, but I do wish Nintendo would stop flogging their back catalouge constantly. Although that's more been a problem with the GameBoy Advance.
I only have a UK price list, but in the UK official Xbox controllers currently have an RRP of £25. The RRP of the wired 360 controller is... £25. (The wireless controller RRP is about the same as the Nintendo Wavebird).
Perhaps the grandparent is comparing a store's discounted cost (the RRP may be £25, but Amazon have them for £21, I can probably find it cheaper if I look harder) to an RRP?
Well, I think these are the final release dates. It would probably be a major PR blow to pull back now. (I don't think Sony ever set it in stone that the PSP was launching at the same time in Europe and the US, they just hinted heavily, then went back on it). Plus Microsoft have been saying they're going for a near worldwide (or at least the 3 major markets) launch for months, they've had plenty of time to plan this.
I saw the launch issue of the UK Offical Xbox 360 Magazine in WHSmiths today as well, which does point to a UK launch being soon.
And why do I suspect that this download service may involve paying to download these games (or at least some of them). I kinda doubt Nintendo (especially Nintendo) are going to suddenly start giving it all away for free.
Project Gotham Racing 2 is good as well, Jet Set Radio Future, Outrun 2, and a few others. The Xbox has had quite a lot of good titles, although I'm not sure if many will be remembered as true classics, probably just very good games. Although Outrun 2 is a true classic already in my mind.
The Xbox usually has the nicest versions of multi-platform titles as well.
They should've released it on the 23rd, and celebrated the 42nd anniversary of Doctor Who instead. :-)
But frankly, you can release something on any day and there'll be something infamous that's happenned on that day, sometime in history.
I'm a child of the '90s, and I personally find normal controllers are quite good for most games (perhaps I find them more useable becuase I grew up with them), but for some games like 2D fighters, you can't beat a joystick. I really like my Dreamcast Arcade Stick, I wish I could find something similar for my Xbox, the cheap Gamester one I found is too small, it won't sit on my lap nicely, and just feels wrong.
Another correction is that the ELSPA system was replaced by the pan-European PEGI system quite a while before GTA:SA was released (well, it's nearly pan-European, there are still a few places with their own systems).
I agree, the Timesplitters games are definatley spiritual successors to Goldeneye.
I'm surprised it hasn't had more kudos really. It's a fantastic deathmatch game, with tons of weapons, characters and game modes. Although TS2 (at least, I haven't played the others much) suffers from the console game problem of having to unlock stuff through single player play for multiplayer, which can grate a bit.
The first article on the list is kinda interesting, I thought some PS2 games already supported USB keyboards and mice, so the PS3 supporting them would'nt be that surprsing, if the USB ports are still there.
(Phantasy Star Online on the Xbox and Gamecube also supported keyboards).
In other news, everyone has known that Halo 3 won't be an Xbox 360 launch title for months.
Personally, I'll belive it when Sega annouce it. But whatever they do, I'll probably buy it.
I've played a lot of Halo 2 on Live. I've not really played the single player game since the one play through I did when I first got the game.
I'd say this article is mostly quite good, pointing out the gripes with Halo 2's online aspects. Although I'm not sure if the weapon controlling is as much of an issue, I've not had that much of a problem, it usually only comes into play if you're already being beaten, or on Collossus, with it's stupid weapon layout.
The Plasma Pistol (and the incredably cheap "noob combo" it leads to) is the real "completley broken" bit IMO. It's tracking is way too good, it seems to be almost impossible to dodge it. The fact it kills an entire overshield is a bit OTT as well, just taking one sheild bar off, or dropping the player down to a normal shield would be less annoying IMO.
Vehicles are probably a touch too hard to take down, but luckily the real bastard (the Scorpian, with) is only on one map AFAIK, and that has two rocket launchers about to help counter it.
The fact that the matchmaking system apparently prefers hosts in the US is annoying for people in the UK, as some weapons like the Shotgun and Sword are ver badly affected by lag. It often seems like it takes one point blank shotgun blast then a meele attack to (hopefully) kill someone, whilst other people can kill me in one shot six feet away.
If you want to go with that route, where you never seeing the Cheif's face, it's probably be better just to get a random bloke to wear the suit, and hire the same guy who does the voice in the games. Kinda like what George Lucas did with Darth Vader, James Earl Jones didn't go around in the suit, they got David Prowse to do that bit.
Cortana could be handled similarly, after all, she's a computer program, there's no reason why she couldn't be a CGI character.
Although I somehow think Hollywood types would probably want big names for the lead roles, rather than have them as both obscure voice actors / stand in combos. Personally I'm not too fussed, as long as it's a reasonable film.
If they have any of the Chief's early history, you'd have to see his face anyway, as he wasn't born in his Mjolinar armour (the Mister Chief is a different story of course).
I don't think special effects are going to be a problem, assuming they have a reasonably budget and a competant effects house, a horde of eight foot tall aliens are going to be easy.
Troll? It was a joke for fuck's sake!
:-) give you a clue?
There weren't any posts when I made it either, it's not my fault if ahlf a dozen other people decided to make similar (but inferior, in my opinion) jokes at the same time.
Didn't the
Now this really is a Troll, or Flamebait, or just an angry person at keyboard.
2. Marathon 2 ran on Windows PC's (although, bafflingly, it would not allow you play on a cross-platform LAN with Mac users.)
Wasn't Marathon before TCP/IP became pretty much universal though? I'd guess for a game of that era the Mac version probably uses AppleTalk, and the PC version IPX for networking. Although I don't have a copy to check.
Linky, and cue Firefox users complaining about Gecko's abysmal performance with certain design elements (but it's open source, so people can fix the problems! That've been there for about five years! Go go open source!).
I suppose it's fairly informationless,[1] although there is a link to a page from the "Bible" Bungie have prepared, which is vaugely interesting for Halo nuts (like me).
[1] Condensed version: Hollywood types wanted to make a Halo movie. We held back, and were advised to write our own script, and not to sign all the rights away. We got Alex Garland. He's written some good books and movies, and like Halo. We say the scripts great. Fox and Universal are the studios producing it.
Can someone inform me when Microsoft / Bungie are travelling back in time, so I know when to go to Blockbuster and borrow the DVD that'll be out by now in the new timeline. :-)