(To those who are wondering wtf that disclaimer is supposed to mean)...that is more of a "cover your ass" statement than anything else, in an attempt to stave off the hundreds of flames I'm sure that Ish gets daily.
Specifically because Ishkur is downright unabashedly nasty towards certain styles of Electronica; specifically Trance music and the commercialization / "dumbing-down" that it has seen over the past decade. Some subgenres of Trance emerge unscarred by Ishkur's wrath, but not many.
Some people seem to take personal offense to Ishkur's decrying of their favorite kind of music, and are rather vocal in letting him know (see the reader mail pages on his site, and for some more laughs search the threads at www.tranceaddict.com for "Ishkur"). I think the disclaimer there is just an attempt by Ish to "head them off at the pass" so to speak; Ishkur is sorta just saying "take this as you will and leave me the hell alone".
With that said... I have been frequenting Ishkur's site for a few years now and those "biases" he mentions in his disclaimer are, for the most part adquately explained by Ishkur and (I've come to see over the years) well deserved.
Of course, maybe all that was pretty clear beforehand to the crowd here and I'm just being CaptainObvious today
The Dreamcast failed for reasons laid out in above replies far better than I could hope to outline so I won't touch that subject, but as for the DC's VMU:
Gimmick? Poorly implemented? Absolutely. Very clever idea, but the "games" you could download onto it and play independently of the DC were 5 minute diversions at best and the only real kind of game genres where the device was actually useful was in sports games (so that you could select your plays without your competition seeing).
The DS's screens, imo, are a completely different beast: unlike the crippled vmu, its second screen not only boasts the same dimensions and resolution as its brother, but it is also a touch screen and comes equipped with a stylus.
This is the first time in a long while that developers are going to have a chance to (I hate using this phrase but) "think outside the box" and design/develop completely new styles of (or at least, refreshing new interpretations of) gameplay that only can be done with the capabilites of the DS's second screen. While I expect many third-party first-generation titles will make poor use of the additional screen (overhead maps, inventory lists, etc.), I am looking foward to Nintendo's opening day offerings and what other companies will have available for the system further down the road.
(The DS's 802.11 and proprietary-network wireless capabilites are going to lead to some very nifty new ideas from companies as well, hopefully outside of just 16-player wireless FPS deathmatches, but that is itself a topic for a different post).
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Gamespot says otherwise; they've indicated somewhere between "90 minutes and 3 hours" for Ridge Racers. http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/12/news_61149 09.html
Specifically because Ishkur is downright unabashedly nasty towards certain styles of Electronica; specifically Trance music and the commercialization / "dumbing-down" that it has seen over the past decade. Some subgenres of Trance emerge unscarred by Ishkur's wrath, but not many.
Some people seem to take personal offense to Ishkur's decrying of their favorite kind of music, and are rather vocal in letting him know (see the reader mail pages on his site, and for some more laughs search the threads at www.tranceaddict.com for "Ishkur"). I think the disclaimer there is just an attempt by Ish to "head them off at the pass" so to speak; Ishkur is sorta just saying "take this as you will and leave me the hell alone".
With that said... I have been frequenting Ishkur's site for a few years now and those "biases" he mentions in his disclaimer are, for the most part adquately explained by Ishkur and (I've come to see over the years) well deserved.
Of course, maybe all that was pretty clear beforehand to the crowd here and I'm just being CaptainObvious today
Gimmick? Poorly implemented? Absolutely. Very clever idea, but the "games" you could download onto it and play independently of the DC were 5 minute diversions at best and the only real kind of game genres where the device was actually useful was in sports games (so that you could select your plays without your competition seeing).
The DS's screens, imo, are a completely different beast: unlike the crippled vmu, its second screen not only boasts the same dimensions and resolution as its brother, but it is also a touch screen and comes equipped with a stylus.
This is the first time in a long while that developers are going to have a chance to (I hate using this phrase but) "think outside the box" and design/develop completely new styles of (or at least, refreshing new interpretations of) gameplay that only can be done with the capabilites of the DS's second screen. While I expect many third-party first-generation titles will make poor use of the additional screen (overhead maps, inventory lists, etc.), I am looking foward to Nintendo's opening day offerings and what other companies will have available for the system further down the road.
(The DS's 802.11 and proprietary-network wireless capabilites are going to lead to some very nifty new ideas from companies as well, hopefully outside of just 16-player wireless FPS deathmatches, but that is itself a topic for a different post).