I bought Assissin's Creed II then found out that I couldn't back up my own save game file. After weeks of playing my PS3 broke. I was furious, and from then on I'll never buy a UBI game. This kind of "always on" crap doubles how much I won't be buying their games.
When I was at school I did O-Level Computer Studies and we programmed mainly on Commodore PETs, which I absolutely love (I check eBay regularly for them, today included, though I've never bought one yet). We also used BBC Model Bs. The whole thing was about programming, and I loved it. Our teacher used to bring his VIC-20 and then his C64 in, so some of us used to go in early and hang out in the computer room.
Then later these new-fangled GCSEs came along and people started renaming Computer Studies to something. I'd like to know when the change happened, and if it was gradual, or an instant change when GCSEs started (the year after I left the Senior school, so must have been the new starters in September '86).
I'm glad they are going back to the thinking of the late '70s on this one.
From what I hear, Xbox live went down for about 2 weeks round Christmas 2007. Did developers leave them?
I don't know why it happened that time, but if they weren't hacked, then was it just a crap system? I think it's worse if you pay for a system that goes down for weeks through incompetence rather that an actual attack by criminals on a system that is free and works under normal conditions.
I think MS gave a free game to people. Sony are giving 2 games and 30 days of PS+ for something that wasn't their fault.
I'd never heard of it until a couple of days ago, but today (before seeing this article on/.) I pledged some money to an Amiga documentary ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vivaamiga/viva-amiga-the-documentary-film ). With today being 17 years since Commodore went bust it seemed a good day to pre-order it.
they locked my save game file, so I couldn't back it up.
I'd bought GH 1, 2, 3, then World Tour. When my PS3 WT save couldn't be backed up I was so annoyed I hardly played it, and totally lost interest in it. As far as I'm concerned they shot themselves in the foot with that one, and I'm always wary if buying Activision games now.
The only thing I'm really interested in is getting round the copy protection on my own files. I'm pretty sure that if my PS3 breaks, I lose some of my saves, as you can only restore to the machine the backup was made on, otherwise it doesn't copy the protected files.
Copy protection on save files is the reason I'll never buy another Guitar Hero type game until the protection it removed, and also why I've not played World Tour as much as previous games.
If this hack gives me back control of my own save files, then I'm glad it's happened.
I use one of my original Zipsticks with a Stelladaptor (http://www.stelladaptor.com/), so you could get an old Zipstick, Comp. Pro, etc. from eBay, then use the Stelladaptor to connect it to your computer with a USB lead.
The other thing I use (for games that require more than one button) is my home-made arcade controls (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.a.kitching/mamecp/cp1.htm).
I stopped watching adverts probably around the mid '90s. The volume was getting louder when they came on and they were incredibly annoying, so since then I've always muted them as soon as they come on, then I'm on the internet/playing a game/reading/etc. until they have finished. I can see the screen in the corner of my eyes, and I have a glance at it every so often, but I never miss the program coming back on.
I also often record the programs I watch, then start watching it 15-20 minutes after it started, and skip the adverts. By the time it's finished I've caught up with it and got to see it all in one go.
I hate adverts with a passion and no matter what the TV people do, I'll never watch them, so I agree with what you said. They lost me in the '90s.
Differently. The same reason that cough and ugh don't sound the same.
Anyway, that's not what I was talking about. The fact is that color is a spelling mistake in the English langusge. When a game comes out over here I expect them to spell words correctly.
I'm sure the French or Spanish versions don't have words spelt wrong because it's easier to spell them that way.
The thing that annoys me about localisation is when here in the UK we have to wait an extra month or two after the US release and the game hasn't had the spelling mistakes fixed (things like color, etc.). This is especially annoying when the game is made by a British team.
A few years ago they took out the option to let you choose where to install Google Earth, so I stopped using it (I didn't have the space to spare on my C drive).
You can save locally, and back your profile up to a flash drive etc. He said in the article that he doesn't even have a copy on his moon. Your moon is your local copy. Why he would delete it from his moon is beyond me, though you do only have a limited number of spaces.
I'm from England, and I find it very strange that putting a minimum age of 18 on a game causes a problem. Seven out of twenty-nine PS2 games I have are 18 Certificate. It's normal for games with lots of violence and swearing to be an 18, and rightly so in my opinion.
I went to a "Back in Time" C64 concert in London a few years ago. It was really good, and seeing someone play "Monty on the Run" on a violin was an experience!
Nemesis the Warlock on the C64 used to leave all the dead bodies on the screen. You could stand on them all and "build" piles to avoid the attacking baddies.
I hate Microsoft. Not just hate, but REALLY HATE. With a passion.
There was a time when the Amiga was the king of computers. It worked very well. It had a brilliant OS with some excellent applications and games. I could do everything I wanted to do on my A1200: Video editing, video capture, genlocking, sound sampling, music creation (using samples or with a MIDI keyboard), programming, printing, wordprocessing, spreadsheets, e-mail, internet, 3D rendering and loads more. It was nice to use. A pleasure in-fact. I could have several programs running all at once on multiple screens of different resolutions with 32Mb and a 1Gb hard Drive. I could even use CDs and Zip drives. Life was good.
Then Microsoft just shat all over the world of computing and we end up with badly written buggy bloated software that needs half a Gig of Ram and a 50Gb hard drive just to be able to do anything. We don't have proper multi-tasking, different screen resolutions, or even RAM drives. They start eating up any company that gets in their way (e.g. buying the company that made the best MIDI software on the Amiga, then killed it). If anyone brings out something better, they make it break by putting in checks for it (e.g. They put a check on the MS website for the browser you are using. If it was Opera, they sent you broken code to mangle your screen). They are arrogant, and ignore the HTML standards that have been set up to make browsing a hassle free experience, by inventing their own HTML tags that don't work on other browsers. The other browsers are then expected to "upgrade" their code to support the non-standard tags, but at the same time MS Internet Explorer is one of the worst browsers out there, with nowhere near the functionality that the superior browsers have. Of course, the general population doesn't bother to choose something better, they follow the great Microsoft like sheep, because they don't know any better.
I stuck with the Amiga until December 2001. At that point I had to get a PC to be able to do the things I wanted to do. That was a bad day.
The computing world is now dominated by MS. Their applications software and OS is everywhere and the hardware is even made to support their software. This isn't good for us, it's only good for MS to make more money.
I have never bought anything by Microsoft, and I never will. I don't care what console they bring out, I won't be buying one. I won't buy a game, a mouse, or a paper clip off them. I have bought computers in the past that used their version of BASIC, but that's as close as I have got to giving them any money.
The world of computing is something that I have grown up with, from the days of the Atari VCS and ZX81, to the C64 and Amiga. Those were fantastic times, but now it's all gone. I could get a Mac, or run Linux, but I wouldn't have the choice to run the things I want to run, because everything is made for Windows with the other platforms getting a selection of some of the software, or incompatable software that can't be shared with the vast majority of people using MS products.
I'll finish up with my favourite Microsoft quote:
"There's nothing wrong with Linux. Microsoft pours hundreds of millions of dollars into Windows marketing every year to make it the operating system of choice. If only the Linux community would do the same instead of wasting their time writing and testing code, they might get somewhere" - Microsoft Spokesman. Says it all really...
My Golden Age is from about '83 to '93. The best of the C64 and Amiga years. Totally fantastic!
Games these days are still very good at times, but in those days things were new and amazing things were happening in games. Now we aren't as impressed by things.
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I'm from the UK, too, and I also do a 37 hour week, and get 25 days holiday, plus the 8 or 9 public holidays.
I wouldn't want to work more than that. I work to live, not live to work.
I bought Assissin's Creed II then found out that I couldn't back up my own save game file. After weeks of playing my PS3 broke. I was furious, and from then on I'll never buy a UBI game. This kind of "always on" crap doubles how much I won't be buying their games.
Retro Gamer is my second favourite mag ever (after Zzap!64). I also subscribe to SFX, which is a Science Fiction Mag.
I don't know what US mags are like, but I've heard they have a lot more pages and are mainly adverts.
When I was at school I did O-Level Computer Studies and we programmed mainly on Commodore PETs, which I absolutely love (I check eBay regularly for them, today included, though I've never bought one yet). We also used BBC Model Bs. The whole thing was about programming, and I loved it. Our teacher used to bring his VIC-20 and then his C64 in, so some of us used to go in early and hang out in the computer room.
Then later these new-fangled GCSEs came along and people started renaming Computer Studies to something. I'd like to know when the change happened, and if it was gradual, or an instant change when GCSEs started (the year after I left the Senior school, so must have been the new starters in September '86).
I'm glad they are going back to the thinking of the late '70s on this one.
:-)
I didn't know if I had it as it's been years since I last remember seeing it. I was hoping I had it, so I could take it off in disgust!
I even got to tell them why I did it ("Because you are suing someone for posting a link to a freeware player that plays RealPlayer files").
I feel better now :-)
From what I hear, Xbox live went down for about 2 weeks round Christmas 2007. Did developers leave them?
I don't know why it happened that time, but if they weren't hacked, then was it just a crap system? I think it's worse if you pay for a system that goes down for weeks through incompetence rather that an actual attack by criminals on a system that is free and works under normal conditions.
I think MS gave a free game to people. Sony are giving 2 games and 30 days of PS+ for something that wasn't their fault.
I'm just saying...
I'd never heard of it until a couple of days ago, but today (before seeing this article on /.) I pledged some money to an Amiga documentary ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vivaamiga/viva-amiga-the-documentary-film ). With today being 17 years since Commodore went bust it seemed a good day to pre-order it.
they locked my save game file, so I couldn't back it up.
I'd bought GH 1, 2, 3, then World Tour. When my PS3 WT save couldn't be backed up I was so annoyed I hardly played it, and totally lost interest in it. As far as I'm concerned they shot themselves in the foot with that one, and I'm always wary if buying Activision games now.
The only thing I'm really interested in is getting round the copy protection on my own files. I'm pretty sure that if my PS3 breaks, I lose some of my saves, as you can only restore to the machine the backup was made on, otherwise it doesn't copy the protected files.
Copy protection on save files is the reason I'll never buy another Guitar Hero type game until the protection it removed, and also why I've not played World Tour as much as previous games.
If this hack gives me back control of my own save files, then I'm glad it's happened.
I've never heard it either, and I'm in England.
I use one of my original Zipsticks with a Stelladaptor (http://www.stelladaptor.com/), so you could get an old Zipstick, Comp. Pro, etc. from eBay, then use the Stelladaptor to connect it to your computer with a USB lead.
The other thing I use (for games that require more than one button) is my home-made arcade controls (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.a.kitching/mamecp/cp1.htm).
I stopped watching adverts probably around the mid '90s. The volume was getting louder when they came on and they were incredibly annoying, so since then I've always muted them as soon as they come on, then I'm on the internet/playing a game/reading/etc. until they have finished. I can see the screen in the corner of my eyes, and I have a glance at it every so often, but I never miss the program coming back on.
I also often record the programs I watch, then start watching it 15-20 minutes after it started, and skip the adverts. By the time it's finished I've caught up with it and got to see it all in one go.
I hate adverts with a passion and no matter what the TV people do, I'll never watch them, so I agree with what you said. They lost me in the '90s.
:-) I couldn't help laughing when I saw what I'd done.
Anyway, it seems that we based it on the ending from the French word, but not the beginning.
But regardless of all of this, it's very bad to publish a game in any language with wrong spellings.
I'm just very surprised that they spend time localising a game, then miss the main point of it.
Differently. The same reason that cough and ugh don't sound the same.
Anyway, that's not what I was talking about. The fact is that color is a spelling mistake in the English langusge. When a game comes out over here I expect them to spell words correctly.
I'm sure the French or Spanish versions don't have words spelt wrong because it's easier to spell them that way.
The thing that annoys me about localisation is when here in the UK we have to wait an extra month or two after the US release and the game hasn't had the spelling mistakes fixed (things like color, etc.). This is especially annoying when the game is made by a British team.
What? Where is SID?
That's what I want to know. The SID chip has had as much impact on me as the 6502 (actually the 6510) and 68000 series.
It's actually my favourite chip ever. Yes, I have a favourite computer chip :-)
A few years ago they took out the option to let you choose where to install Google Earth, so I stopped using it (I didn't have the space to spare on my C drive).
Is it fixed yet?
You can save locally, and back your profile up to a flash drive etc. He said in the article that he doesn't even have a copy on his moon. Your moon is your local copy. Why he would delete it from his moon is beyond me, though you do only have a limited number of spaces.
I'm from England, and I find it very strange that putting a minimum age of 18 on a game causes a problem. Seven out of twenty-nine PS2 games I have are 18 Certificate. It's normal for games with lots of violence and swearing to be an 18, and rightly so in my opinion.
I went to a "Back in Time" C64 concert in London a few years ago. It was really good, and seeing someone play "Monty on the Run" on a violin was an experience!
Nemesis the Warlock on the C64 used to leave all the dead bodies on the screen. You could stand on them all and "build" piles to avoid the attacking baddies.
I hate Microsoft. Not just hate, but REALLY HATE. With a passion.
There was a time when the Amiga was the king of computers. It worked very well. It had a brilliant OS with some excellent applications and games. I could do everything I wanted to do on my A1200: Video editing, video capture, genlocking, sound sampling, music creation (using samples or with a MIDI keyboard), programming, printing, wordprocessing, spreadsheets, e-mail, internet, 3D rendering and loads more. It was nice to use. A pleasure in-fact. I could have several programs running all at once on multiple screens of different resolutions with 32Mb and a 1Gb hard Drive. I could even use CDs and Zip drives. Life was good.
Then Microsoft just shat all over the world of computing and we end up with badly written buggy bloated software that needs half a Gig of Ram and a 50Gb hard drive just to be able to do anything. We don't have proper multi-tasking, different screen resolutions, or even RAM drives. They start eating up any company that gets in their way (e.g. buying the company that made the best MIDI software on the Amiga, then killed it). If anyone brings out something better, they make it break by putting in checks for it (e.g. They put a check on the MS website for the browser you are using. If it was Opera, they sent you broken code to mangle your screen). They are arrogant, and ignore the HTML standards that have been set up to make browsing a hassle free experience, by inventing their own HTML tags that don't work on other browsers. The other browsers are then expected to "upgrade" their code to support the non-standard tags, but at the same time MS Internet Explorer is one of the worst browsers out there, with nowhere near the functionality that the superior browsers have. Of course, the general population doesn't bother to choose something better, they follow the great Microsoft like sheep, because they don't know any better.
I stuck with the Amiga until December 2001. At that point I had to get a PC to be able to do the things I wanted to do. That was a bad day.
The computing world is now dominated by MS. Their applications software and OS is everywhere and the hardware is even made to support their software. This isn't good for us, it's only good for MS to make more money.
I have never bought anything by Microsoft, and I never will. I don't care what console they bring out, I won't be buying one. I won't buy a game, a mouse, or a paper clip off them. I have bought computers in the past that used their version of BASIC, but that's as close as I have got to giving them any money.
The world of computing is something that I have grown up with, from the days of the Atari VCS and ZX81, to the C64 and Amiga. Those were fantastic times, but now it's all gone. I could get a Mac, or run Linux, but I wouldn't have the choice to run the things I want to run, because everything is made for Windows with the other platforms getting a selection of some of the software, or incompatable software that can't be shared with the vast majority of people using MS products.
I'll finish up with my favourite Microsoft quote:
"There's nothing wrong with Linux. Microsoft pours hundreds of millions of dollars into Windows marketing every year to make it the operating system of choice. If only the Linux community would do the same instead of wasting their time writing and testing code, they might get somewhere" - Microsoft Spokesman. Says it all really...
My Golden Age is from about '83 to '93. The best of the C64 and Amiga years. Totally fantastic!
Games these days are still very good at times, but in those days things were new and amazing things were happening in games. Now we aren't as impressed by things.
Indeed. I don't know what these "mouse pads" are, but I expect they are something like mouse mats.