1) Third party support is perfectly fine on GCN. I myself own about 45 games for it. A few noteable 3rd party games would be Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Resident Evil 4 (as you mentioned), Rebel Strike, and more. But as you say, a lot of the appeal of a GameCube is the first party stuff. I can get Star Fox, Donkey Konga, Paper Mario, SSBM, F-Zero, Mario Kart, and a whole host of others.
2) I have a friend who works at EB Games. He knows well the faults of the slim PSP. I want you to go test that out for me, if you truly think the slim PS2 is well made. I take no responsibility for the results.
Sony hardware is just plain shit. The PSP's control system is fatally flawed, with the analog nubs falling off, and a sticky/non responsive square button. Most of my friends have been through 2 or 3 PS2s. The console when it's working is plagued with horrendous load times, and shitty error correction on DVDs. I've played through both MGS2 and MGS3 on a PS2, and in both cases, about 5% of the codec conversations froze, and were unwatchable. Kudos to MGS3 for allowing the option to skip them, as it allowed you to get past them without resurfacing a disc that looked perfectly fine. I have a couple of used GCN games that are pretty badly scratched, but the system reads them without a hitch.
As for online support, I truly think that's a matter of preference. I know that I myself prefer to have the capability of having a 4 player match. It's great when you can pick up a case of beer, and have 4 player matches of SSBM. Myself and a group of friends were at the Casino the other night, and we decided not to waste our money any further and go home and play video games. We had our choice of going to my house and playing GameCube, or going to another guy's house and playing PS2. Given that I had a great deal more games, and 4 player games, we decided to grab the GameCube from my place, and head to the other friend's house to play it. (he has a better TV, and more comfortable seating). 4 player support is far more important to me than online gaming.
But that being said, I've played Phantasy Star Online and Mario Kart online on my GameCube. The experience kind of fell flat on me, and I prefer my PC for the job.
What has Sony made recently? I can only think of a few things that they own, which are all in at least their second incarnation at this point. (In some cases, up to 5 or 6).
Twisted Metal
ICO
Gran Turismo
Hot Shots Golf
If that's what you call innovation, then I want no part of it. Each of those games is essentially the same bloody thing in each incarnation with new graphics. As for that slim PS2 you have, I want you to try something for me. Next time you want to play a game, leave the case on top of the disc tray. Come back here, and tell me what happens when you play your game.
I wish I hadn't squandered my mod points, otherwise I would mod you as a troll, which you most certainly deserve. Nothing in your post is based on any sort of fact, and you can't even spell right, let alone get the names of the games you are spouting off right. You don't even seem to realize that Sony does not own Square.
You make a very compelling point there.;-) The GBA provided the 2D game genre with great life, and gave all of us old timers one last hurrah with our SNES style games. It's entirely possible that the DS will give us an entirely different retro-active experience.
That's where you are wrong. I would have welcomed whole heartedly a completely different graphical style. But I disagree with the new game, not because of art style... (as previous posters, you included have mentioned, it does bear close semblance to OoT.). But I disagree with the new game because of the general atmosphere I get from it. It could be the trailers, but I see a loss of the vision behind the game. If you will recall, Miyamoto himself said he didn't like the style of the Space World 2000 tech demo as the world was just too far removed from the one he imagined.
What I'm saying is that while the art style of Zelda is continually changing, there gets to be a point where the world can become far too dark purely through art style alone. And I think Zelda is skirting that edge far too close. I mean, if Resident Evil 4 was done in pastel colours, I would be complaining just as much, for completely opposite reasons. Art style has a HUGE effect on atmosphere.
Mouse, I've told you before that I can't read your writing when it's all on one line.;) I think it might be time to learn the non-breaking white space tag. =P But I will respond to a few points that caught my eye.
You seem to assume M means bad- it's a typical Nintendo fanboy response that really gets on my nerves. "M" is just a videogame content rating, just as "R" is a movie content rating, and doesn't necessarily reflect quality in any way.
Indeed. If you will note, I mentioned that in my post several times. I am not debating that the game will be good. But I am debating the style of the game. If a game developer decided to make a Strawberry Shortcake game in a strange style, or if some genius decided that Clerks should be redone in full color, but be completely G rated, what would you say? Or perhaps if someone decided to take Looney Tunes, and make them really badass? Or perhaps remake Looney Tunes so that Bugs Bunny died of a gunshot wound in an extremely graphic manner? Or perhaps making a sequel to a game that bears little to no resemblance to the original?
That's not to say that any of these ideas would create an entirely bad product. But it IS to say that they aren't in keeping of the spirit of the original idea.
And really, that's all I'm trying to say. I like what I see, I really do, and I think the game will be fantastic. But I have a hard time swallowing it as a Zelda game.
Nintendo is a distant 3rd in the US, but they are close worldwide. Nintendo absolutely stomps Microsoft in Japan, and I think that Europe is more or less split right down the middle.
As for the new Legend of Zelda trailer, I am once again bothered by the game. There's no way in hell that it will get less than a T rating... and that just seems very contrary to the spirit of the franchise. Nevertheless, I do look forward to playing the game. It looks like it will be very good, and provide a take on the franchise like we have never seen before.
That was what I had said upon viewing the most recent Zelda trailer. And I said pretty much the same thing after seeing the first one. I have no doubt that it will be an amazing game, and I have no doubt that I will very much enjoy it, and I have even less doubt that it will sell very well.
But I still feel like I've lost a very good friend. Zelda was never about giving the vocal fans what they wanted. It was about taking a journey through the very imaginative mind of Shigeru Miyamoto. To remember what it was like to be that child walking through the forest and finding a lake. To be the child who overcomes all perils and finds buried treasure and saves the princess. For me, Wind Waker captured that perfectly and completely.
The new Zelda just seems to be Nintendo's way of showing that it listens to its fans. But that isn't why they became successful in the first place. Nintendo got where they were by hiring designers with vivid imaginations and a natural sense of what was FUN. If Nintendo listened to its fans, Mario would be stealing cars and killing hookers. And I want no part of that.
The current trend in thinking that every video game should carry an M rating needs to stop. I have way more fun playing an E rated Zelda game than a cut and paste M rated FPS.
And USB also takes up more power than a headset port. I mentioned the microphone for the reason that online games can be made quite more entertaining by the inclusion of voice support. Nintendo has done that.
But about the selling of promise alone, I have to say I bought a GameCube on the same promise. And it paid out nicely I say.:) I have three of my top 10 games of all time on that system. (Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 4, and Zelda: Wind Waker).
Re:IMHO DS is far better and the review is compari
on
PSP And DS Duke It Out
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· Score: 1
After reading the article, I was going to come here and rant about it. But I thought I would read over the responses first. I find that I no longer need to say anything at all about it.;) Someone has already covered almost all of what I was going to say.
About all I would add is to pick apart each thing that the author said, and that's been covered further down. Thanks man.
Well, I personally bought my DS on a promise. A promise of games like Zelda, Advance Wars, Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Wario Ware, Mario Kart, and others. Since then, I've gotten news of gems like Lost in Blue, Soul Calibur, and Katamari Damacy.
I find that the touchpad is amazingly good, and as another poster mentioned to you, you should really try playing it with the thumbstrap. It's how the game really works.
And you also forget that DS has built in 802.11b (all it's missing is a software TCP/IP stack), and a stylus. This makes the game absolutely incredible for playing what? PC games. PC games usually feature two things. Fine mouse control and internet play. DS has BOTH of those things, making things like FPS and RTS games entirely possible on DS. And the DS also has a MICROPHONE.
These are the reasons I bought my DS. I was sold on the promise of PC games on a handheld, internet play, and the best lineup of games on a new console I've ever seen.
Yeah, it used to do that for me. But nightly builds solve the problem just fine. The Moox 1.0 build also works fine. If you don't like those solutions though, there's also the slashfix extension.
Because most people seem to think it's God's gift to gamers. =P I've never understood that one myself. I've played the game on Xbox and PC, and I have to say that the PC version was substantially better, but both games were quite highly overrated. (Like Splinter Cell. Another game I just wish would go away)
I thought for sure that would be a link to Halo. But since it's not, my respect level increases dramatically.;-) Personally, about the only game on the Xbox that I even remotely want to play is Panzer Dragoon Orta. But I can very much live without it.
No, I actually said that about the Xbox people alone.;) I mean, I honestly can't think of a legitimate reason for owning an Xbox, given its game library.
Okay, begin flaming and modding down now. I've got my flame retardant deodorant on. =)
I think merely owning a GameCube indicates that you are a fairly honest person who is just interested in playing some games. The console has yet to be hacked in a way that really allows for widespread piracy. I've played a single downloaded game on my GameCube... and that was the Biohazard 4 DEMO, which wasn't available in my area.
I know that most of the people I know who have an Xbox bought one simply for the ease of piracy on it, and don't touch a GameCube, as they are expected to actually purchase their games.
I think you are REALLY underestimating just how much 1.5GB really is. I remember an interview with Factor 5 once where they said that Rogue Leader was 200MB, and they couldn't figure out what they were going to do with the rest of the space on the disc.
I'm going to stop talking about Grand Theft Auto, as I really don't know a whole lot about the game, except that a working pirate version of GTA3 can fit on a single CD (but lacks radio stations). I actually have an intense dislike for the game.
But I just find it odd that you use MGS2 as an example of a game not possible on GameCube. It's true that the game has a whole lot of audio and cinematics, but I don't see where the game is all that bigger than Twin Snakes. The conversations in MGS2 are of course never ending and numerous, but MGS: TTS on GameCube barely uses 2 discs. The switchover point is quite late in the game, and there's plenty of remaining space on that second DVD.
And if we want to talk about more games with LOTS of content, I might mention Resident Evil 4, Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Metroid Prime, and Rogue Squadron. Each of which is bloody huge, has lots of dialogue, lots of FMV, or other. As for the games you mentioned, I highly doubt that Tekken 5 would occupy all of 1.5GB (I mean, it's a fighting game. See Soul Calibur II for details). Certain racing games, I can only assume you mean Gran Turismo. It's true that the game features a whole lot of cars. But so did Gran Turismo on the Playstation, which had a whole lot less going for it. Now, it's true that a current generation game will use a whole lot more textures, but there are ways around that. As for Ninja Gaiden, please see Metroid Prime.;)
But the Gran Turismo thing really brings me to my last point. Xenosaga was the first PS2 game to require multiple discs (Japan), or a dual layered disc (USA). A single layered DVD is about 4.5GB, and a dual layered DVD is 9GB. This means that greater than 90% of PS2 games will fit on 4.5GB. Currently, the largest GameCube games fit on 3GB.
When creating a game, oftentimes the smallest part of the game will be the compiled code. This includes level geometry, physics, AI, and pretty much any other part of the game represented by mathematics. The remaining space occupied by the game is textures, movies, and sound. But you see, this is where the GameCube shines. The GameCube is a lot newer of a console than the PS2. As a result, it has things going for it that the PS2 does not. GameCube has support on their dev kits for 3 things. Divx, MP3, and hardware support for 6:1 compressed textures. This is going to take a HUGE bite out of the amount of space required for a game. Textures will take 1/6 of the space that they would on a PS2, movies will be nice and small, and audio need not be uncompressed. (Note that I am not saying that all PS2 games use uncompressed audio. Quite the contrary. But audio is often not the biggest space concern with games). What I'm saying is that there are lots of tricks out there to keep the size of the GameCube game from getting too big that don't exist on the PS2. And quite honestly, I think 1.5GB is big enough in 99% of the cases out there. The benefits I get from the mini-DVDs outweigh any cost in my opinion.
Well, I can't really speak for GTA, as I don't care for the game. But I am under a STRONG impression that most of the data is uncompressed audio. The GameCube is more than powerful enough to handle compressed audio, so I think that the audio could be made into mp3 without a loss in game quality. Of course I have no proof of this, but I don't see it as being a technical limitation. I mean, GameCube has Metroid Prime, which fits on a single disc. And I think level size compares to GTA.
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and Resident Evil are both available on GameCube... Which are quite similar to Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, and Silent Hill. You are correct that they are too big for a single GameCube disc. Which is why they are delivered on GameCube in 2 discs. And I assure you that it's not a bother at all to switch discs when you are most of the way through the game, and adding a disc to a game costs mere pennies.
I'm really not sure. I don't own a copy of the game, as I intensely dislike it. But I do know that the second disc of the game is pretty much audio. For that to happen, it would need to be in wav format... Why not simply compress the data?
Regardless, I think that it's plenty clear that the game is possible on GameCube, but Rockstar just doesn't support GameCube. I honestly can't think of any technical limitations (including disc size), that they can't get around with minimal work.
Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PC was a grand total of 2 CDs. One CD contained the music, and the other held the game data. Grand total... 1400MB. Grand total of a GOD (GameCube Optical Disc)? 1500MB.:)
Actually, GameCube supports 6:1 hardware texture compression. You are correct on that. And the audio is usually compressed as well.
What you fail to realize, is that texture compression is much like a PNG. It compresses it to 1/6 the size you would find a texture on a PS2, with no loss of quality. You feed that into the GPU on the GameCube, and the GameCube can decode it for you. On the PS2, it takes up valuable clock cycles to decompress the texture. So a lot of developers don't do it.
As for the audio... well, most audio is tracked, same as the PS2. The stuff that isn't, is of course sampled. Much like playing an MP3 or OGG on your computer, it's a good idea to compress the audio. Storing and playing back raw wave files seems a little needlessly excessive to me, if the processor can decode compressed audio in real time.
I'm sorry, I just don't get what you were getting at. It's a good thing that game console hardware is powerful enough to handle compression these days. Even the GBA supports compression of sprites.
But if you mean that the GameCube has bad looking/sounding multiplatform games, I would really like to know which ones. But even if they are slightly lower in visual quality, I can still load the game a good 10 seconds quicker on a GameCube than a PS2 for the most part. That's truly more important to me.
Nay. I'm still on the first disc of the domestic version. But I've played Resident Evil 0 and 1 to the second disc. I think I can honestly say that it doesn't bother me.
I think he's really upset that he has to change discs every 20 hours of gameplay or so.;) I mean, you have to get up off the couch, open up the console, and change the disc. Then there's the incredible weight of the disc. Plus, it adds like $0.05 to the price of the game.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Third party support is perfectly fine on GCN. I myself own about 45 games for it. A few noteable 3rd party games would be Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Resident Evil 4 (as you mentioned), Rebel Strike, and more. But as you say, a lot of the appeal of a GameCube is the first party stuff. I can get Star Fox, Donkey Konga, Paper Mario, SSBM, F-Zero, Mario Kart, and a whole host of others.
2) I have a friend who works at EB Games. He knows well the faults of the slim PSP. I want you to go test that out for me, if you truly think the slim PS2 is well made. I take no responsibility for the results.
Sony hardware is just plain shit. The PSP's control system is fatally flawed, with the analog nubs falling off, and a sticky/non responsive square button. Most of my friends have been through 2 or 3 PS2s. The console when it's working is plagued with horrendous load times, and shitty error correction on DVDs. I've played through both MGS2 and MGS3 on a PS2, and in both cases, about 5% of the codec conversations froze, and were unwatchable. Kudos to MGS3 for allowing the option to skip them, as it allowed you to get past them without resurfacing a disc that looked perfectly fine. I have a couple of used GCN games that are pretty badly scratched, but the system reads them without a hitch.
As for online support, I truly think that's a matter of preference. I know that I myself prefer to have the capability of having a 4 player match. It's great when you can pick up a case of beer, and have 4 player matches of SSBM. Myself and a group of friends were at the Casino the other night, and we decided not to waste our money any further and go home and play video games. We had our choice of going to my house and playing GameCube, or going to another guy's house and playing PS2. Given that I had a great deal more games, and 4 player games, we decided to grab the GameCube from my place, and head to the other friend's house to play it. (he has a better TV, and more comfortable seating). 4 player support is far more important to me than online gaming.
But that being said, I've played Phantasy Star Online and Mario Kart online on my GameCube. The experience kind of fell flat on me, and I prefer my PC for the job.
If that's what you call innovation, then I want no part of it. Each of those games is essentially the same bloody thing in each incarnation with new graphics. As for that slim PS2 you have, I want you to try something for me. Next time you want to play a game, leave the case on top of the disc tray. Come back here, and tell me what happens when you play your game.
I wish I hadn't squandered my mod points, otherwise I would mod you as a troll, which you most certainly deserve. Nothing in your post is based on any sort of fact, and you can't even spell right, let alone get the names of the games you are spouting off right. You don't even seem to realize that Sony does not own Square.
You make a very compelling point there. ;-) The GBA provided the 2D game genre with great life, and gave all of us old timers one last hurrah with our SNES style games. It's entirely possible that the DS will give us an entirely different retro-active experience.
Australia is also about the only place in the world where Xbox is #1. But quite frankly, nobody cares. =P
That's where you are wrong. I would have welcomed whole heartedly a completely different graphical style. But I disagree with the new game, not because of art style... (as previous posters, you included have mentioned, it does bear close semblance to OoT.). But I disagree with the new game because of the general atmosphere I get from it. It could be the trailers, but I see a loss of the vision behind the game. If you will recall, Miyamoto himself said he didn't like the style of the Space World 2000 tech demo as the world was just too far removed from the one he imagined.
What I'm saying is that while the art style of Zelda is continually changing, there gets to be a point where the world can become far too dark purely through art style alone. And I think Zelda is skirting that edge far too close. I mean, if Resident Evil 4 was done in pastel colours, I would be complaining just as much, for completely opposite reasons. Art style has a HUGE effect on atmosphere.
Indeed. If you will note, I mentioned that in my post several times. I am not debating that the game will be good. But I am debating the style of the game. If a game developer decided to make a Strawberry Shortcake game in a strange style, or if some genius decided that Clerks should be redone in full color, but be completely G rated, what would you say? Or perhaps if someone decided to take Looney Tunes, and make them really badass? Or perhaps remake Looney Tunes so that Bugs Bunny died of a gunshot wound in an extremely graphic manner? Or perhaps making a sequel to a game that bears little to no resemblance to the original?
That's not to say that any of these ideas would create an entirely bad product. But it IS to say that they aren't in keeping of the spirit of the original idea.
And really, that's all I'm trying to say. I like what I see, I really do, and I think the game will be fantastic. But I have a hard time swallowing it as a Zelda game.
Nintendo is a distant 3rd in the US, but they are close worldwide. Nintendo absolutely stomps Microsoft in Japan, and I think that Europe is more or less split right down the middle.
That was what I had said upon viewing the most recent Zelda trailer. And I said pretty much the same thing after seeing the first one. I have no doubt that it will be an amazing game, and I have no doubt that I will very much enjoy it, and I have even less doubt that it will sell very well.
But I still feel like I've lost a very good friend. Zelda was never about giving the vocal fans what they wanted. It was about taking a journey through the very imaginative mind of Shigeru Miyamoto. To remember what it was like to be that child walking through the forest and finding a lake. To be the child who overcomes all perils and finds buried treasure and saves the princess. For me, Wind Waker captured that perfectly and completely.
The new Zelda just seems to be Nintendo's way of showing that it listens to its fans. But that isn't why they became successful in the first place. Nintendo got where they were by hiring designers with vivid imaginations and a natural sense of what was FUN. If Nintendo listened to its fans, Mario would be stealing cars and killing hookers. And I want no part of that.
The current trend in thinking that every video game should carry an M rating needs to stop. I have way more fun playing an E rated Zelda game than a cut and paste M rated FPS.
And USB also takes up more power than a headset port. I mentioned the microphone for the reason that online games can be made quite more entertaining by the inclusion of voice support. Nintendo has done that.
:) I have three of my top 10 games of all time on that system. (Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 4, and Zelda: Wind Waker).
But about the selling of promise alone, I have to say I bought a GameCube on the same promise. And it paid out nicely I say.
After reading the article, I was going to come here and rant about it. But I thought I would read over the responses first. I find that I no longer need to say anything at all about it. ;) Someone has already covered almost all of what I was going to say.
About all I would add is to pick apart each thing that the author said, and that's been covered further down. Thanks man.
Well, I personally bought my DS on a promise. A promise of games like Zelda, Advance Wars, Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Wario Ware, Mario Kart, and others. Since then, I've gotten news of gems like Lost in Blue, Soul Calibur, and Katamari Damacy.
I find that the touchpad is amazingly good, and as another poster mentioned to you, you should really try playing it with the thumbstrap. It's how the game really works.
And you also forget that DS has built in 802.11b (all it's missing is a software TCP/IP stack), and a stylus. This makes the game absolutely incredible for playing what? PC games. PC games usually feature two things. Fine mouse control and internet play. DS has BOTH of those things, making things like FPS and RTS games entirely possible on DS. And the DS also has a MICROPHONE.
These are the reasons I bought my DS. I was sold on the promise of PC games on a handheld, internet play, and the best lineup of games on a new console I've ever seen.
Standards fanboys eh? Man, fanboy is a word that's just getting WAAAAY over-used.
Yeah, it used to do that for me. But nightly builds solve the problem just fine. The Moox 1.0 build also works fine. If you don't like those solutions though, there's also the slashfix extension.
Because most people seem to think it's God's gift to gamers. =P I've never understood that one myself. I've played the game on Xbox and PC, and I have to say that the PC version was substantially better, but both games were quite highly overrated. (Like Splinter Cell. Another game I just wish would go away)
I thought for sure that would be a link to Halo. But since it's not, my respect level increases dramatically. ;-) Personally, about the only game on the Xbox that I even remotely want to play is Panzer Dragoon Orta. But I can very much live without it.
And in keeping with the spirit of this conversation... you might actually have some hair on your balls by then. =)
No, I actually said that about the Xbox people alone. ;) I mean, I honestly can't think of a legitimate reason for owning an Xbox, given its game library.
Okay, begin flaming and modding down now. I've got my flame retardant deodorant on. =)
I think merely owning a GameCube indicates that you are a fairly honest person who is just interested in playing some games. The console has yet to be hacked in a way that really allows for widespread piracy. I've played a single downloaded game on my GameCube... and that was the Biohazard 4 DEMO, which wasn't available in my area.
I know that most of the people I know who have an Xbox bought one simply for the ease of piracy on it, and don't touch a GameCube, as they are expected to actually purchase their games.
I think you are REALLY underestimating just how much 1.5GB really is. I remember an interview with Factor 5 once where they said that Rogue Leader was 200MB, and they couldn't figure out what they were going to do with the rest of the space on the disc.
;)
I'm going to stop talking about Grand Theft Auto, as I really don't know a whole lot about the game, except that a working pirate version of GTA3 can fit on a single CD (but lacks radio stations). I actually have an intense dislike for the game.
But I just find it odd that you use MGS2 as an example of a game not possible on GameCube. It's true that the game has a whole lot of audio and cinematics, but I don't see where the game is all that bigger than Twin Snakes. The conversations in MGS2 are of course never ending and numerous, but MGS: TTS on GameCube barely uses 2 discs. The switchover point is quite late in the game, and there's plenty of remaining space on that second DVD.
And if we want to talk about more games with LOTS of content, I might mention Resident Evil 4, Tales of Symphonia, Baten Kaitos, Metroid Prime, and Rogue Squadron. Each of which is bloody huge, has lots of dialogue, lots of FMV, or other. As for the games you mentioned, I highly doubt that Tekken 5 would occupy all of 1.5GB (I mean, it's a fighting game. See Soul Calibur II for details). Certain racing games, I can only assume you mean Gran Turismo. It's true that the game features a whole lot of cars. But so did Gran Turismo on the Playstation, which had a whole lot less going for it. Now, it's true that a current generation game will use a whole lot more textures, but there are ways around that. As for Ninja Gaiden, please see Metroid Prime.
But the Gran Turismo thing really brings me to my last point. Xenosaga was the first PS2 game to require multiple discs (Japan), or a dual layered disc (USA). A single layered DVD is about 4.5GB, and a dual layered DVD is 9GB. This means that greater than 90% of PS2 games will fit on 4.5GB. Currently, the largest GameCube games fit on 3GB.
When creating a game, oftentimes the smallest part of the game will be the compiled code. This includes level geometry, physics, AI, and pretty much any other part of the game represented by mathematics. The remaining space occupied by the game is textures, movies, and sound. But you see, this is where the GameCube shines. The GameCube is a lot newer of a console than the PS2. As a result, it has things going for it that the PS2 does not. GameCube has support on their dev kits for 3 things. Divx, MP3, and hardware support for 6:1 compressed textures. This is going to take a HUGE bite out of the amount of space required for a game. Textures will take 1/6 of the space that they would on a PS2, movies will be nice and small, and audio need not be uncompressed. (Note that I am not saying that all PS2 games use uncompressed audio. Quite the contrary. But audio is often not the biggest space concern with games). What I'm saying is that there are lots of tricks out there to keep the size of the GameCube game from getting too big that don't exist on the PS2. And quite honestly, I think 1.5GB is big enough in 99% of the cases out there. The benefits I get from the mini-DVDs outweigh any cost in my opinion.
Well, I can't really speak for GTA, as I don't care for the game. But I am under a STRONG impression that most of the data is uncompressed audio. The GameCube is more than powerful enough to handle compressed audio, so I think that the audio could be made into mp3 without a loss in game quality. Of course I have no proof of this, but I don't see it as being a technical limitation. I mean, GameCube has Metroid Prime, which fits on a single disc. And I think level size compares to GTA.
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and Resident Evil are both available on GameCube... Which are quite similar to Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, and Silent Hill. You are correct that they are too big for a single GameCube disc. Which is why they are delivered on GameCube in 2 discs. And I assure you that it's not a bother at all to switch discs when you are most of the way through the game, and adding a disc to a game costs mere pennies.
I'm really not sure. I don't own a copy of the game, as I intensely dislike it. But I do know that the second disc of the game is pretty much audio. For that to happen, it would need to be in wav format... Why not simply compress the data?
Regardless, I think that it's plenty clear that the game is possible on GameCube, but Rockstar just doesn't support GameCube. I honestly can't think of any technical limitations (including disc size), that they can't get around with minimal work.
Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PC was a grand total of 2 CDs. One CD contained the music, and the other held the game data. Grand total... 1400MB. Grand total of a GOD (GameCube Optical Disc)? 1500MB. :)
Actually, GameCube supports 6:1 hardware texture compression. You are correct on that. And the audio is usually compressed as well.
What you fail to realize, is that texture compression is much like a PNG. It compresses it to 1/6 the size you would find a texture on a PS2, with no loss of quality. You feed that into the GPU on the GameCube, and the GameCube can decode it for you. On the PS2, it takes up valuable clock cycles to decompress the texture. So a lot of developers don't do it.
As for the audio... well, most audio is tracked, same as the PS2. The stuff that isn't, is of course sampled. Much like playing an MP3 or OGG on your computer, it's a good idea to compress the audio. Storing and playing back raw wave files seems a little needlessly excessive to me, if the processor can decode compressed audio in real time.
I'm sorry, I just don't get what you were getting at. It's a good thing that game console hardware is powerful enough to handle compression these days. Even the GBA supports compression of sprites.
But if you mean that the GameCube has bad looking/sounding multiplatform games, I would really like to know which ones. But even if they are slightly lower in visual quality, I can still load the game a good 10 seconds quicker on a GameCube than a PS2 for the most part. That's truly more important to me.
Nay. I'm still on the first disc of the domestic version. But I've played Resident Evil 0 and 1 to the second disc. I think I can honestly say that it doesn't bother me.
I think he's really upset that he has to change discs every 20 hours of gameplay or so. ;) I mean, you have to get up off the couch, open up the console, and change the disc. Then there's the incredible weight of the disc. Plus, it adds like $0.05 to the price of the game.