Holding off the release "until it's done" didn't work out so well for Valve either. Half-Life 2 had tons of bugs when it was released, after numerous delays and years of development. So, it's a slippery slope.
I'd rather have a game delayed or simply take forever to develop and have the bugs ironed out than rushed out to meet some deadline filled with bugs, but it doesn't always work out either way.
Of course gamers first bitch about how patches are never released in a timely fashion. Then one company who actually does a great job getting patches out there releases one bad patch and gets reemed for it. The game is a great one, the company offers better than most support. I don't think a bad patch is a reason to avoid this game or EA in general.
First off, I wasn't "reeming" them for releasing a bad patch. How you got that impression from my post is beyond me. Second, what good is it to get a patch out there if it actually makes things worse? Bad enough they rushed a buggy game out the door to begin with, even worse that they're now rushing the patches out the door and make a buggy game even buggier.
I have a number of reasons for passing on Battlefield 2, the sloppy release and even sloppier patching was just the final factor that pushed my decision to the "no" side.
I for one am happy to have a game released so I can play it early with support.
Please, keep doing that. I'm more than happy to let you pay $50 to be a beta-tester on games. It makes it so I can wait a few weeks, pay half that for the same game, and play it with (hopefully) most of the bugs patched out.:-)
I'd hoped Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness would have taught them that already. That piece of crap pretty much killed an entire franchise (the crappy movie they rushed the game out to tie in with certainly didn't help either) but it seems little, if anyhing at all, was learned from that experience.
I've been on the fence in regards to whether or not I was going to get Battlefield 2. I think I'll skip this one, I'm not interested in the game enough to put up with this kind of crap to play it.
Next.
Why would anybody buy Apple hardware to run Windows? Because I use the Mac as my primary system, but I'm also a big gamer who hates consoles, so I have a Windows system I use for nothing but gaming. I'd love to be able to buy a Mac that could dual-boot into Windows and let me do my gaming on the same system. No more dealing with two computers sitting around, no more trying to find a good KVM that supports dual monitors, no more having to pay for two sets of hardware.
This is all hinging on having driver support for the latest and greatest video cards on the Mac side, as well as assuming Apple doesn't lock the hardware down so the CPU (among other bits of hardware) can't be upgraded as well.
People submitting their own blog entries as "news" is what led me to give up on Digg (along with the regularity with which they got Dugg to the front page.) I really hope the self-submitted blog entry virus doesn't spread to Slashdot.
Spot on, Image is a terrible example. Image didn't fail becuase the ideas or the concept was bad, they failed because too many (not all of them, but enough to sink the ship) of their founding fathers were lazy, egotistical hypocrites.
Guys like Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane didn't hate the system, they just didn't like which side of the equation they sat on. People toiling away writing and drawing books for a big company and ending up with no ownership or rights to anything they created wasn't the problem, it's that they were the ones doing the toiling and not the ones collecting the cash and characters.
How many Spawn comics does Todd write or draw nowadays? How much stuff for Top Cow does Silvestri do? How many of Wildstorm's books are Jim Lee directly involved in? How much ownership over their creations do you think the folks cranking out all the books for them get? Neil Gaiman had to take McFarlane to court to get rights over characters he created while working for Image, for f*cks sake.
Image was never about creating a new way of doing things, in spite of what they may have said early on. It was about replicating the existing system anew, so the founders could be at the top of the pile and collect all the cash from other's hard work.
I don't think updating vs. clean install has any bearing. I did a clean install (I never use the upgrade option with major Mac OS updates, re-format and clean install every time!) and had the same problem he had, more or less. It indexed for about 6 hours, and then said it was done. I tried to use it, it searched for a second and went back into indexing mode and threw out my search. It did this for most of two days until it finally settled down, and it's been okay since.
I think it's a case of the indexing taking much longer than Spotlight is telling people it takes, as well as prematurely exiting it's indexing mode and letting people start using it before it's really ready. I have my original 160GB internal drive, a second 250GB internal drive, and a third 120GB external firewire drive, so it's not unreasonable to expect it to take a really long time to index 530GB of hard drive storage, probably close to half of which is used.
I will say, I've found Spotlight fairly useful so far. Due to the clean install, I've had to go through and re-install and re-register a lot of my shareware and Spotlight made it easy to find the relevant registration info. Cmd-Space, type "windowshade", a second later the e-mail with my serial number pops up, and so on. It's a little slow sometimes, but it works for very basic searching most of the time.
Oh really? So it's illegal to make a backup archive of your own DVD on a hard drive you own?
No, that's covered under fair use. But, the DMCA does make it illegal to circumvent the copy protection: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." So, without decrypting the files, can you do anything with that backup? Can you copy those files back onto a DVD-R and burn them, without modification, and have a watchable DVD? I've never tried it, but my suspicion would be no.
Both Apple and Microsoft are enabling copyright violations by having the ability to open VIDEO_TS folders with their included DVD players?
No, because the files themsleves remain encrypted. You can get at the files, but, without decrypting them, can you do anything with them?
Everybody who rips DVD's they own to their laptop hard drive so they can get more battery life when watching their movies during a long flight is breaking the law?
If they've used any method of decrypting the data on the DVD to facilitate the copying or viewing, yes.
Good luck trying to make that case.
I have no interest in trying to make that case, I think it's a fucked up law. The MPAA, however, just might. The portion of the DMCA that prohibits creating or distributing software to circumvent copy protection has already been tried and held up, in the DeCSS case. They haven't, to my knowledge, sued any individuals for decrytpting DVD's, but they do have the DMCA behind them if they ever actually wanted to.
Don't take this too personally, but I think there should be a "-1, Factually Incorrect" mod option.
Trust me, I don't take anything on Slashdot personally.:-) But, in this case, I think my facts are correct. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me, and I'll have no problem admitting so if that's the case.
The full text of the DMCA is available from the EFF if you really want to actually read through it all.
The problem is, the only way much of that would be even feasible is if Apple launched the iTunes Movie Store, or whatever it might be called.
Otherwise how do you get those movies for the kids or that copy of the LOTR trilogy onto the damn thing? Legally and easily, at least. If it's on DVD there's no way to legally copy the movie onto an iPod, short of using a video capture card (as with transferring VHS tapes) to record the output from a DVD player. Which would be prohibitively time consuming for most, in addition to the fact that few people (at the base consumer level) even have video capture devices.
Sure, there's other ways to copy a DVD, but nothing legal. Will Apple be able to get the MPAA to sign on the dotted line when they know it will lead to people circumventing the copy protection to copy their DVD's? Will Apple be able to get people to buy it if they're locked into either buying from the Apple video store or breaking the law to copy their DVD's?
Yes, there's a huge potential market there. But DRM is seriously impeding taking advantage of that market. Unlike music, whose media is mostly (for now) unencumbered with DRM of any kind.
Underwhelmed is a perfect description of my feelings towards the XBox 360. I watched the videos and looked at the screenshots and was filled with an overwhelming sense of "Meh" and a shrugging of the shoulders.
Previous generations of consoles almost always wowed me from the first moment, this just makes me want to go take a nap.
The whole thing reminds of the pre-OS X Mac days, when Apple talked about having eliminated the then-infamous "Type 11" error (which had something to do with memory allocation, IIRC.) In reality, they hadn't fixed the problem but just changed the error handling so there were two new (Type 3 & 8 maybe? It's been years) errors to replace the old one.
At least that's how I remember it, but my memory handling nowadays is about as bad as System 7's, so I may very well be having a Type 11 error of my own right now.:)
And why not free as in speech, too? I'd be much happier that way...
The closest you'll probably get is Dave Sim's Cerebus. He's made the character of Cerebus an un-protected trademark, which means that anybody who wants to do their own Cerebus comic can do so.
Additionally, he's gotten all the paperwork done to make the entire 300 issue series public domain upon the deaths of him and co-artist Gerhard.
A game I played recently that was in dire need of some editing-down was Far Cry - there was one point where I thought I'd almost finished the game (rescuing what's-her-name from a war-torn bunker) but it turned out I was only about half-way through, and I almost ended up playing as quickly as I could just to finish the damn thing. I'd probably have appreciated it a bit more if I'd known roughly how much game was left...
I'll agree that Far Cry was in some desperate need of an editing-down. Though, I think they should have ended it after the last level before the mutant/alien things starteed appearing. It was all downhill from there.
I really loved the first few levels. Beautiful, open environments. Non-linear level design. No sci-fi/clichee enemies. I hated the lack of quicksave, but I dealt with it. The game was worth it, at that point.
Then it all changed. Suddenly I'm fighting mutant monsters, the FPS clichee to end all clichees. Then things switched to more indoor environments, which were much more linear and very average to look at. Nothing beautiful, new or inspiring there. It turned into another run-of-the-mill FPS, and suddenly the lack of quicksave really bothered me, especially as the difficulty ramped up. If I want to play the same level over and over, I'll fire up MAME and play some Pac-Man (and probably have a hell of a lot more fun as well.)
Half-Life 2, despite its faults, had an 'ending' you could see from almost the very beginning of the game, that being the Combine Citadel. As you approached it, you knew just how much story (and therefore game) there was left - there was a definite sense of 'direction' to the player's actions which is frequently missing from FPS games.
While I'll agree that it's nice to have some idea of how far along you are, it can be equally nice to have them surprise you with more game, just when you thought it was over.
While the extra game was a negative against Far Cry (mostly because the rest of the levels sucked) it was a nice surprise in the original Half-Life. Just when I was thinking I must be close to finsihed, they throw me onto this wildly different, alien environment! Much as I hate the Xen levels now, it was an awesome surprise the first time I played it, and I was happy to have more game to play.
Exactly my point. I had loved every game Bungie put out up until the buyout (okay, Oni sucked, but that didn't actually come out until after the buyout, so I'll excuse it.) Since then all they've done is the two Halo games, which, while I'll confess to having never played either, I have never seen or read anything about them that makes me want to run out and play them. They seem to me to be, exactly as you said, very average FPS games, saddled with the additional handicap of having to use X-Box controllers to play them. Blech.
Would Bungie still be releasing great games were they not gobbled up by Microsoft? Perhaps they still would have only put out those two games, we'll never know.
Ugh. Just the thought of Half-Life 3 being an X-Box exclusive triggered my gag reflex. Half-Life 1 & 2 are two of my favorite games of all time, I'd hate to miss out on the third one (and any other future sequels) due to another Microsoft assimilation. Grr.
Damn you Microsoft, you took Bungie away from me, don't even thnk about taking away Valve too!
On a side note maybe the parents should regulate what game the kid get in the forst place no?
What about cases where the parent is a gamer themselves, and want to play games that might not be appropriate for their kids?
I've known several people in this situation. Some simply chose to make a personal sacrifice and NOT buy and play any games (GTA, Painkiller, etc) they wouldn't want their children playing. Others would buy the games and hide the CD's so the kids couldn't play them (as well as deleting any desktop or start menu shortcuts to keep them from even knowing the game is there.)
I'm not saying this chip is the solution, my opinion leans towards the opposite in fact. But there are certainly situations where there could be games around the house that kids shouldn't be playing, just as there could be movies, music, etc. around that's not age appropriate.
Personally, I don't care about G4 but I do care about HL2 hype as it's one of my favorite games of all time.:-) Next Wednesday will be the first time in months I've watched anything on G4, let alone The Screen Savers... err.. Attack Of The Show.
Attack Of The Show? Excuse me while I go in the corner and laugh out loud for several minutes. That has to be the WORST name for a show EVER. So it should fit in real well on G4.
It seems like it will be more of a tech demo than anything else. They described it as a "short" single level (whatever "short" means in Valve's vernacular.) Also that "it will be made available free of charge to Half-Life 2 customers that meet a specific set of high end hardware requirements." So I'd assume it will only run on the latest and greatest cards.
Yup, lack of options is what led me to the Belkin KVM to begin with (I was using a pair of lower-end Belkin KVMs that I wasn't crazy about before this one.) I need a KVM to support dual monitors at high resolutions and good refresh rates, and preferably with audio switching as well. Not an easy beast to hunt down.:-) I have a couple of options bookmarked that I need to get around to investigating at some point, but I really don't have the spare cash at the moment.
It's really not even the problems themselves that have upset me, it's Belkin's attitude towards them. They know the problem exists, I've read of several others with the exact same problems, but they don't care enough to fix it and instead offer stupid workarounds to the problem, like plugging a second keyboard in. They also won't stop claiming they support the Macintosh or even make a notation that the current crop of Mac keyboards are NOT supported (I suspect because they'd lose almost all sales to Mac customers, and they'd rather sell a poorly supported semi-funtional product than not sell it at all, customer satisfaction be damned.)
But I'm glad yours works for you! I wish I could say the same, so that my hunt for a suitable KVM would be, like yours, over.:-)
I have one of those SOHO KVMs, the two CPU/dual monitor model, and it's a piece of shit.
First off, I'm dual platform, and Belkin claims it supports Mac & PC, but don't mention that it doesn't support the newer G5 keyboards. In fact, from what I've read it doesn't support ANY keyboard that has a built-in USB hub of any kind.
But, the G5 keyboard works if you plug it into one of the secondary USB ports. Problem solved, right? Wrong. The hub beeps loudly and continually if there's no keyboard plugged into the main keyboard USB port. Belkin's solution to the problem? Either just don't use the Mac keyboard (and lose the extra functionality it offers on the Mac) or plug a spare USB keyboard (assuming you can find one that's supported) into the main keyboard port and use the Mac keyboard in the secondary port. Thanks Belkin, but one of the reasons I bought your POS KVM was so I wouldn't need to have two keyboards cluttering up my desk.
In my case, I took the old USB keyboard from my G4 and plugged it into the main keyboard port (it doesn't actually work though, it only stops the damn KVM from beeping at me) and use the G5 keyboard plugged into the second port. It works for now (though the KVM does occasionally refuse to recognize even the G4 keyboard and starts beeping at me again) until I can find a different, good dual-monitor KVM from another manufacturer.
As a side note, Belkin apparantly offers a firmware update to disable the beeping, but I've been unable to find an updater for the dual-monitor KVMs, only the single monitor models. So I guess I'm still screwed.
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Holding off the release "until it's done" didn't work out so well for Valve either. Half-Life 2 had tons of bugs when it was released, after numerous delays and years of development. So, it's a slippery slope.
I'd rather have a game delayed or simply take forever to develop and have the bugs ironed out than rushed out to meet some deadline filled with bugs, but it doesn't always work out either way.
Of course gamers first bitch about how patches are never released in a timely fashion. Then one company who actually does a great job getting patches out there releases one bad patch and gets reemed for it. The game is a great one, the company offers better than most support. I don't think a bad patch is a reason to avoid this game or EA in general.
First off, I wasn't "reeming" them for releasing a bad patch. How you got that impression from my post is beyond me. Second, what good is it to get a patch out there if it actually makes things worse? Bad enough they rushed a buggy game out the door to begin with, even worse that they're now rushing the patches out the door and make a buggy game even buggier.
I have a number of reasons for passing on Battlefield 2, the sloppy release and even sloppier patching was just the final factor that pushed my decision to the "no" side.
I for one am happy to have a game released so I can play it early with support.
Please, keep doing that. I'm more than happy to let you pay $50 to be a beta-tester on games. It makes it so I can wait a few weeks, pay half that for the same game, and play it with (hopefully) most of the bugs patched out. :-)
I'd hoped Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness would have taught them that already. That piece of crap pretty much killed an entire franchise (the crappy movie they rushed the game out to tie in with certainly didn't help either) but it seems little, if anyhing at all, was learned from that experience.
Bean counters will be bean counters, regardless.
I've been on the fence in regards to whether or not I was going to get Battlefield 2. I think I'll skip this one, I'm not interested in the game enough to put up with this kind of crap to play it. Next.
Why would anybody buy Apple hardware to run Windows? Because I use the Mac as my primary system, but I'm also a big gamer who hates consoles, so I have a Windows system I use for nothing but gaming. I'd love to be able to buy a Mac that could dual-boot into Windows and let me do my gaming on the same system. No more dealing with two computers sitting around, no more trying to find a good KVM that supports dual monitors, no more having to pay for two sets of hardware.
This is all hinging on having driver support for the latest and greatest video cards on the Mac side, as well as assuming Apple doesn't lock the hardware down so the CPU (among other bits of hardware) can't be upgraded as well.
People submitting their own blog entries as "news" is what led me to give up on Digg (along with the regularity with which they got Dugg to the front page.) I really hope the self-submitted blog entry virus doesn't spread to Slashdot.
Spot on, Image is a terrible example. Image didn't fail becuase the ideas or the concept was bad, they failed because too many (not all of them, but enough to sink the ship) of their founding fathers were lazy, egotistical hypocrites.
Guys like Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane didn't hate the system, they just didn't like which side of the equation they sat on. People toiling away writing and drawing books for a big company and ending up with no ownership or rights to anything they created wasn't the problem, it's that they were the ones doing the toiling and not the ones collecting the cash and characters.
How many Spawn comics does Todd write or draw nowadays? How much stuff for Top Cow does Silvestri do? How many of Wildstorm's books are Jim Lee directly involved in? How much ownership over their creations do you think the folks cranking out all the books for them get? Neil Gaiman had to take McFarlane to court to get rights over characters he created while working for Image, for f*cks sake.
Image was never about creating a new way of doing things, in spite of what they may have said early on. It was about replicating the existing system anew, so the founders could be at the top of the pile and collect all the cash from other's hard work.
These are not the glass tubes you're looking for...
Unless his intention was to tease the users that can't afford the system required to play this game, it seems like a lot of work for nothing.
Or to tease Mac-only users, who can't play it now and never will. ;)
I should add the obligatory "I use a Mac myself, it's only a joke, please don't kill my karma!" line here.
I don't think updating vs. clean install has any bearing. I did a clean install (I never use the upgrade option with major Mac OS updates, re-format and clean install every time!) and had the same problem he had, more or less. It indexed for about 6 hours, and then said it was done. I tried to use it, it searched for a second and went back into indexing mode and threw out my search. It did this for most of two days until it finally settled down, and it's been okay since.
I think it's a case of the indexing taking much longer than Spotlight is telling people it takes, as well as prematurely exiting it's indexing mode and letting people start using it before it's really ready. I have my original 160GB internal drive, a second 250GB internal drive, and a third 120GB external firewire drive, so it's not unreasonable to expect it to take a really long time to index 530GB of hard drive storage, probably close to half of which is used.
I will say, I've found Spotlight fairly useful so far. Due to the clean install, I've had to go through and re-install and re-register a lot of my shareware and Spotlight made it easy to find the relevant registration info. Cmd-Space, type "windowshade", a second later the e-mail with my serial number pops up, and so on. It's a little slow sometimes, but it works for very basic searching most of the time.
Oh really? So it's illegal to make a backup archive of your own DVD on a hard drive you own?
No, that's covered under fair use. But, the DMCA does make it illegal to circumvent the copy protection: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." So, without decrypting the files, can you do anything with that backup? Can you copy those files back onto a DVD-R and burn them, without modification, and have a watchable DVD? I've never tried it, but my suspicion would be no.
Both Apple and Microsoft are enabling copyright violations by having the ability to open VIDEO_TS folders with their included DVD players?
No, because the files themsleves remain encrypted. You can get at the files, but, without decrypting them, can you do anything with them?
Everybody who rips DVD's they own to their laptop hard drive so they can get more battery life when watching their movies during a long flight is breaking the law?
If they've used any method of decrypting the data on the DVD to facilitate the copying or viewing, yes.
Good luck trying to make that case.
I have no interest in trying to make that case, I think it's a fucked up law. The MPAA, however, just might. The portion of the DMCA that prohibits creating or distributing software to circumvent copy protection has already been tried and held up, in the DeCSS case. They haven't, to my knowledge, sued any individuals for decrytpting DVD's, but they do have the DMCA behind them if they ever actually wanted to.
Don't take this too personally, but I think there should be a "-1, Factually Incorrect" mod option.
Trust me, I don't take anything on Slashdot personally. :-) But, in this case, I think my facts are correct. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me, and I'll have no problem admitting so if that's the case.
The full text of the DMCA is available from the EFF if you really want to actually read through it all.
The problem is, the only way much of that would be even feasible is if Apple launched the iTunes Movie Store, or whatever it might be called.
Otherwise how do you get those movies for the kids or that copy of the LOTR trilogy onto the damn thing? Legally and easily, at least. If it's on DVD there's no way to legally copy the movie onto an iPod, short of using a video capture card (as with transferring VHS tapes) to record the output from a DVD player. Which would be prohibitively time consuming for most, in addition to the fact that few people (at the base consumer level) even have video capture devices.
Sure, there's other ways to copy a DVD, but nothing legal. Will Apple be able to get the MPAA to sign on the dotted line when they know it will lead to people circumventing the copy protection to copy their DVD's? Will Apple be able to get people to buy it if they're locked into either buying from the Apple video store or breaking the law to copy their DVD's?
Yes, there's a huge potential market there. But DRM is seriously impeding taking advantage of that market. Unlike music, whose media is mostly (for now) unencumbered with DRM of any kind.
Seeing as it doesn't have an x86 CPU in it, it won't natively run any Windows x86 PC software. They may implement some lame emulator.
Thus, their purchase of Virtual PC?
Underwhelmed is a perfect description of my feelings towards the XBox 360. I watched the videos and looked at the screenshots and was filled with an overwhelming sense of "Meh" and a shrugging of the shoulders.
Previous generations of consoles almost always wowed me from the first moment, this just makes me want to go take a nap.
Worst idea since Greedo shooting first.
The whole thing reminds of the pre-OS X Mac days, when Apple talked about having eliminated the then-infamous "Type 11" error (which had something to do with memory allocation, IIRC.) In reality, they hadn't fixed the problem but just changed the error handling so there were two new (Type 3 & 8 maybe? It's been years) errors to replace the old one.
At least that's how I remember it, but my memory handling nowadays is about as bad as System 7's, so I may very well be having a Type 11 error of my own right now. :)
And why not free as in speech, too? I'd be much happier that way...
The closest you'll probably get is Dave Sim's Cerebus. He's made the character of Cerebus an un-protected trademark, which means that anybody who wants to do their own Cerebus comic can do so.
Additionally, he's gotten all the paperwork done to make the entire 300 issue series public domain upon the deaths of him and co-artist Gerhard.
A game I played recently that was in dire need of some editing-down was Far Cry - there was one point where I thought I'd almost finished the game (rescuing what's-her-name from a war-torn bunker) but it turned out I was only about half-way through, and I almost ended up playing as quickly as I could just to finish the damn thing. I'd probably have appreciated it a bit more if I'd known roughly how much game was left...
I'll agree that Far Cry was in some desperate need of an editing-down. Though, I think they should have ended it after the last level before the mutant/alien things starteed appearing. It was all downhill from there.
I really loved the first few levels. Beautiful, open environments. Non-linear level design. No sci-fi/clichee enemies. I hated the lack of quicksave, but I dealt with it. The game was worth it, at that point.
Then it all changed. Suddenly I'm fighting mutant monsters, the FPS clichee to end all clichees. Then things switched to more indoor environments, which were much more linear and very average to look at. Nothing beautiful, new or inspiring there. It turned into another run-of-the-mill FPS, and suddenly the lack of quicksave really bothered me, especially as the difficulty ramped up. If I want to play the same level over and over, I'll fire up MAME and play some Pac-Man (and probably have a hell of a lot more fun as well.)
Half-Life 2, despite its faults, had an 'ending' you could see from almost the very beginning of the game, that being the Combine Citadel. As you approached it, you knew just how much story (and therefore game) there was left - there was a definite sense of 'direction' to the player's actions which is frequently missing from FPS games.
While I'll agree that it's nice to have some idea of how far along you are, it can be equally nice to have them surprise you with more game, just when you thought it was over.
While the extra game was a negative against Far Cry (mostly because the rest of the levels sucked) it was a nice surprise in the original Half-Life. Just when I was thinking I must be close to finsihed, they throw me onto this wildly different, alien environment! Much as I hate the Xen levels now, it was an awesome surprise the first time I played it, and I was happy to have more game to play.
Exactly my point. I had loved every game Bungie put out up until the buyout (okay, Oni sucked, but that didn't actually come out until after the buyout, so I'll excuse it.) Since then all they've done is the two Halo games, which, while I'll confess to having never played either, I have never seen or read anything about them that makes me want to run out and play them. They seem to me to be, exactly as you said, very average FPS games, saddled with the additional handicap of having to use X-Box controllers to play them. Blech.
Would Bungie still be releasing great games were they not gobbled up by Microsoft? Perhaps they still would have only put out those two games, we'll never know.
Ugh. Just the thought of Half-Life 3 being an X-Box exclusive triggered my gag reflex. Half-Life 1 & 2 are two of my favorite games of all time, I'd hate to miss out on the third one (and any other future sequels) due to another Microsoft assimilation. Grr.
Damn you Microsoft, you took Bungie away from me, don't even thnk about taking away Valve too!
On a side note maybe the parents should regulate what game the kid get in the forst place no?
What about cases where the parent is a gamer themselves, and want to play games that might not be appropriate for their kids?
I've known several people in this situation. Some simply chose to make a personal sacrifice and NOT buy and play any games (GTA, Painkiller, etc) they wouldn't want their children playing. Others would buy the games and hide the CD's so the kids couldn't play them (as well as deleting any desktop or start menu shortcuts to keep them from even knowing the game is there.)
I'm not saying this chip is the solution, my opinion leans towards the opposite in fact. But there are certainly situations where there could be games around the house that kids shouldn't be playing, just as there could be movies, music, etc. around that's not age appropriate.
Personally, I don't care about G4 but I do care about HL2 hype as it's one of my favorite games of all time. :-) Next Wednesday will be the first time in months I've watched anything on G4, let alone The Screen Savers... err.. Attack Of The Show.
Attack Of The Show? Excuse me while I go in the corner and laugh out loud for several minutes. That has to be the WORST name for a show EVER. So it should fit in real well on G4.
It seems like it will be more of a tech demo than anything else. They described it as a "short" single level (whatever "short" means in Valve's vernacular.) Also that "it will be made available free of charge to Half-Life 2 customers that meet a specific set of high end hardware requirements." So I'd assume it will only run on the latest and greatest cards.
Yup, lack of options is what led me to the Belkin KVM to begin with (I was using a pair of lower-end Belkin KVMs that I wasn't crazy about before this one.) I need a KVM to support dual monitors at high resolutions and good refresh rates, and preferably with audio switching as well. Not an easy beast to hunt down. :-) I have a couple of options bookmarked that I need to get around to investigating at some point, but I really don't have the spare cash at the moment.
It's really not even the problems themselves that have upset me, it's Belkin's attitude towards them. They know the problem exists, I've read of several others with the exact same problems, but they don't care enough to fix it and instead offer stupid workarounds to the problem, like plugging a second keyboard in. They also won't stop claiming they support the Macintosh or even make a notation that the current crop of Mac keyboards are NOT supported (I suspect because they'd lose almost all sales to Mac customers, and they'd rather sell a poorly supported semi-funtional product than not sell it at all, customer satisfaction be damned.)
But I'm glad yours works for you! I wish I could say the same, so that my hunt for a suitable KVM would be, like yours, over. :-)
I have one of those SOHO KVMs, the two CPU/dual monitor model, and it's a piece of shit.
First off, I'm dual platform, and Belkin claims it supports Mac & PC, but don't mention that it doesn't support the newer G5 keyboards. In fact, from what I've read it doesn't support ANY keyboard that has a built-in USB hub of any kind.
But, the G5 keyboard works if you plug it into one of the secondary USB ports. Problem solved, right? Wrong. The hub beeps loudly and continually if there's no keyboard plugged into the main keyboard USB port. Belkin's solution to the problem? Either just don't use the Mac keyboard (and lose the extra functionality it offers on the Mac) or plug a spare USB keyboard (assuming you can find one that's supported) into the main keyboard port and use the Mac keyboard in the secondary port. Thanks Belkin, but one of the reasons I bought your POS KVM was so I wouldn't need to have two keyboards cluttering up my desk.
In my case, I took the old USB keyboard from my G4 and plugged it into the main keyboard port (it doesn't actually work though, it only stops the damn KVM from beeping at me) and use the G5 keyboard plugged into the second port. It works for now (though the KVM does occasionally refuse to recognize even the G4 keyboard and starts beeping at me again) until I can find a different, good dual-monitor KVM from another manufacturer.
As a side note, Belkin apparantly offers a firmware update to disable the beeping, but I've been unable to find an updater for the dual-monitor KVMs, only the single monitor models. So I guess I'm still screwed.