Of course you'd launch the attack from a botnet. One exploit and you're talking business, would be easy to make the govt comps do enough to start a war or at least a severe diplomatic desaster. Knowing these fed idiots it'll probably be easier to make their machines declare war on the NATO than putting a "hacked by Russia" notice on an MS server.
Data interception like that can be detected, too. Takes only one spotter and the whole thing breaks down. They should go back to busting doors and sending in the armed forces when warranted and fucking off when not.
For a car it wouldn't be very useful as a car does not keep track of its own status in much detail. A robot has to react to damage by itself but a car is usually under the control of a human driver who will react to the damage by himself (usually by pulling over and getting it repaired provided the damage is serious enough) so the car doesn't need to know its own state in more detail than the LEDs on the dashboard can express. After all it's just a representation of what sensors measure and no sensors = no data.
Supposedly a mine-clearing bot (lots of legs designed to be blown off by mines, the bot just walks around and triggers them) that was literally on its last leg was pulled out of the testing (it would have crawled onto a final mine and be destroyed in the process) because the supervising officer felt sorry for it. People are capable of feeling empathy for the dumbest animals, why wouldn't they for a robot?
Ninjas were also on recon duty, they're just pretty much feudal era secret agents, even regarding their fiction: Magic using ninjas turn into bond-style gadgets and neither was ever really used (outside of Soviet "we have to match with that American spy gear" projects).
I don't know how many modern assassins actually use sniper rifles but there's plenty of methods.
That sure doesn't apply in the other direction, considering all the crap some schools pull every time there is a shooting (preemptively treating any outcasts as killers which would only make them feel even more justified to go out and kill people...).
Ammo for the beams is probably meant to keep you from just using the most powerful beam on everything. I know in Prime I used the plasma beam as much as I could since it would often 1-2 shot an enemy.
Personally I think the analog stick just doesn't work well for aiming since you can't have both quick turning and fine aiming for larger distances. Solution? Make the enemies larger. 10m ants are hard to miss, even with analog stick precision. That's why I don't mind stick aiming in Earth Defence Force 2 but do mind it almost everywhere else.
Physics often end up being mere toys in most games with perhaps one or two puzzles using them (in a very primitive way) and the rest being mostly debries to make explosions look more powerful and add ragdoll deaths. BTW, there's plenty of readily buyable physics systems but it'll still take time to set your game world up for it.
Art IS the most expensive area in game development but of course it's not the only one getting more expensive. Multi-processor programming is more difficult and bug-prone than the old single-processor way.
Anyway, more processing power does mean more work or would you argue that the one-man games of the 8 bit era were cookie-cutter shovelware (or at least moreso than larger productions)?
The question is more whether Sony WANTS to drop the price. Obviously they had to drop it on the 60GB ones since they're "worse" than the 80GB ones but whether they actually intend to make 500$ the standard price of the PS3 is unclear.
Of course at that price level a 100$ cut is not going to do much, they're still more expensive than both competitors (yeah yeah I know, using Mac accounting you can somehow claim the 360 costs more but fact is the 360 costs 350$, the PS3 500-600$ and even adding some optional hardware to the 360 doesn't make it possible to buy a PS3 for 350$).
Less processing power makes games simpler but not necessarily in the gameplay sense. As power increases rooms get more detailled and it takes longer and longer to produce as much level as before which translates to higher costs and often even shorter levels. Having to make a high-res version of every object in the game for proper normalmap generation eats tons of time (probably the biggest time eater). More texture resolution means you have to paint smaller and smaller details into it which takes more time. Adding physics to every random debry in the level and making them behave correctly takes time.
I have little doubt that you can easily spend twice the time on making every part of the game as before. It's not the HD, that's a simple API call to set the rendering resolution. It's dealing with the higher geometry and texture throughputs as well as more powerful shader engines and more detailled physics.
If you include the Gamecube you should look into the Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen/Clash of Ninja games, those are pretty good (independent of the license) but 4 for the GC (the best GC version) isn't getting a release in the west, instead there's a modified version of the Wii sequels and I have no idea if those are any good. Technically there's also Street Fighter on the virtual console (and possibly the Neo Geo games in the future) but that's kind of a stretch to count. I think I did read that a non-crappy version of Guilty Gear Accent Core was coming out for the Wii but I'm not sure.
I'd disagree with any claims that categorically claim 3d is less or more fun than 2d. One of my favourite games on the DS is Chou Soujuu Mecha MG which is a 3d mech game that wouldn't be very feasible in 2d. Can't do much physics with thrown buildings in 2d, can't have analog up-down swings in 2d (the game would have to be top-down if it was 2d), etc. 3d is not for impressing people with realism, it's simply for having more dimensions when your game design needs them, e.g. for GTA.
VR goggles? Most people don't want those since they look dorky as hell and they prevent you from looking at your real surroundings which is probably not a good idea for a device mostly used in public places.
The problem with that statement, "1/4 play at least one game a month", is that even if I just fire up snake once or twice because I forgot my DS at home I count into that statistic. That's like measuring the number of PC gamers and counting a guy who plays Solitaire during lunch break. They are technically playing but it's unlikely that you can sell them any games.
If your phone could play the same games your DS or PSP could, would you choose to carry a separate device? Some would, but there is extremely clear evidence that there's a huge market that would rather have it all in on package.
There's two problems here: 1. Battery, gaming hardware eats power at a rate that's unacceptable for a cellphone. My DS will easily run dry if I play it a bit longer on one day, if that meant my cellphone goes down with it I'd be screwed. 2. Ergonomy, gaming devices need to be two-handed because you have to perform simultaneous actions in most games but a cellphone must be one-handed. A gaming device needs buttons that can be pressed in the spur of a moment and in almost any combination. The buttons must be easy to press, not stiff like cellphone buttons. They must be placed in an ergonomic shape which takes up too much space to fit a keypad on there. The screen must be reasonably large when a phone only needs the screen for some secondary purposes. The requirements for cellphone controls and gaming controls are pretty incompatible.
An all-in-one device must solve these issues before it becomes a good platform for both purposes.
What's with all the hype for Killzone 2? The first game was hyped like mad and ended up being buggy crap, why do people suddently have such high expectations for the sequel? How many devs go from total shit to killer app in one release?
Sure, some people can't tell, others don't care, some people just don't care because ear buds suck so bad. However, a lot of those people aren't in a position to lay out $500 for a video game system or HDTV either, so they're not exactly the market segment in question, are they?
If we argue that the PS3 will get anything better than last place then yes, they are in the market segment, just like the people who don't have 500$, those who don't plug their game system into a HDTV and those who don't care about Blu-Ray. Just because the product fails to appeal to those demographics doesn't mean they aren't important since the PS3's competition DOES appeal to those demographics.
My PDA uses both battery-powered RAM and flash (ignoring the CF card), the flash only holds a backup of the RAM program data but e.g. in the event of a power loss the whole data is wiped, including all programs and the OS which is where the flash backup comes into play. Flash is just too slow to replace the RAM and it wears out after too many writes, too.
Of course my cellphone keeps all its programs in flash and loads them into RAM on demand which causes awfully long load times...
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I think this would be the perfect time for a hacker to replace the SPD and CDU (govt party) websites with a mock NSDAP website.
Of course you'd launch the attack from a botnet. One exploit and you're talking business, would be easy to make the govt comps do enough to start a war or at least a severe diplomatic desaster. Knowing these fed idiots it'll probably be easier to make their machines declare war on the NATO than putting a "hacked by Russia" notice on an MS server.
Data interception like that can be detected, too. Takes only one spotter and the whole thing breaks down. They should go back to busting doors and sending in the armed forces when warranted and fucking off when not.
Or reverse engineer it and hire a botnet owner to DDOS the fed servers with false information.
You don't need to give them permission to withdraw anything, you can manually transfer money to them.
For a car it wouldn't be very useful as a car does not keep track of its own status in much detail. A robot has to react to damage by itself but a car is usually under the control of a human driver who will react to the damage by himself (usually by pulling over and getting it repaired provided the damage is serious enough) so the car doesn't need to know its own state in more detail than the LEDs on the dashboard can express. After all it's just a representation of what sensors measure and no sensors = no data.
Supposedly a mine-clearing bot (lots of legs designed to be blown off by mines, the bot just walks around and triggers them) that was literally on its last leg was pulled out of the testing (it would have crawled onto a final mine and be destroyed in the process) because the supervising officer felt sorry for it. People are capable of feeling empathy for the dumbest animals, why wouldn't they for a robot?
Ninjas were also on recon duty, they're just pretty much feudal era secret agents, even regarding their fiction: Magic using ninjas turn into bond-style gadgets and neither was ever really used (outside of Soviet "we have to match with that American spy gear" projects).
I don't know how many modern assassins actually use sniper rifles but there's plenty of methods.
So, um, increase in CEO positions -> decrease in rape cases?
That sure doesn't apply in the other direction, considering all the crap some schools pull every time there is a shooting (preemptively treating any outcasts as killers which would only make them feel even more justified to go out and kill people...).
Don't forget the translator codes... ugh.
Ammo for the beams is probably meant to keep you from just using the most powerful beam on everything. I know in Prime I used the plasma beam as much as I could since it would often 1-2 shot an enemy.
Personally I think the analog stick just doesn't work well for aiming since you can't have both quick turning and fine aiming for larger distances. Solution? Make the enemies larger. 10m ants are hard to miss, even with analog stick precision. That's why I don't mind stick aiming in Earth Defence Force 2 but do mind it almost everywhere else.
I'd rather say those smaller things flee and don't try to attack you when you're powerful enough.
Physics often end up being mere toys in most games with perhaps one or two puzzles using them (in a very primitive way) and the rest being mostly debries to make explosions look more powerful and add ragdoll deaths. BTW, there's plenty of readily buyable physics systems but it'll still take time to set your game world up for it.
Art IS the most expensive area in game development but of course it's not the only one getting more expensive. Multi-processor programming is more difficult and bug-prone than the old single-processor way.
Anyway, more processing power does mean more work or would you argue that the one-man games of the 8 bit era were cookie-cutter shovelware (or at least moreso than larger productions)?
The question is more whether Sony WANTS to drop the price. Obviously they had to drop it on the 60GB ones since they're "worse" than the 80GB ones but whether they actually intend to make 500$ the standard price of the PS3 is unclear.
Of course at that price level a 100$ cut is not going to do much, they're still more expensive than both competitors (yeah yeah I know, using Mac accounting you can somehow claim the 360 costs more but fact is the 360 costs 350$, the PS3 500-600$ and even adding some optional hardware to the 360 doesn't make it possible to buy a PS3 for 350$).
Less processing power makes games simpler but not necessarily in the gameplay sense. As power increases rooms get more detailled and it takes longer and longer to produce as much level as before which translates to higher costs and often even shorter levels. Having to make a high-res version of every object in the game for proper normalmap generation eats tons of time (probably the biggest time eater). More texture resolution means you have to paint smaller and smaller details into it which takes more time. Adding physics to every random debry in the level and making them behave correctly takes time.
I have little doubt that you can easily spend twice the time on making every part of the game as before. It's not the HD, that's a simple API call to set the rendering resolution. It's dealing with the higher geometry and texture throughputs as well as more powerful shader engines and more detailled physics.
If you include the Gamecube you should look into the Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen/Clash of Ninja games, those are pretty good (independent of the license) but 4 for the GC (the best GC version) isn't getting a release in the west, instead there's a modified version of the Wii sequels and I have no idea if those are any good. Technically there's also Street Fighter on the virtual console (and possibly the Neo Geo games in the future) but that's kind of a stretch to count. I think I did read that a non-crappy version of Guilty Gear Accent Core was coming out for the Wii but I'm not sure.
I'd disagree with any claims that categorically claim 3d is less or more fun than 2d. One of my favourite games on the DS is Chou Soujuu Mecha MG which is a 3d mech game that wouldn't be very feasible in 2d. Can't do much physics with thrown buildings in 2d, can't have analog up-down swings in 2d (the game would have to be top-down if it was 2d), etc. 3d is not for impressing people with realism, it's simply for having more dimensions when your game design needs them, e.g. for GTA.
VR goggles? Most people don't want those since they look dorky as hell and they prevent you from looking at your real surroundings which is probably not a good idea for a device mostly used in public places.
There's two problems here:
1. Battery, gaming hardware eats power at a rate that's unacceptable for a cellphone. My DS will easily run dry if I play it a bit longer on one day, if that meant my cellphone goes down with it I'd be screwed.
2. Ergonomy, gaming devices need to be two-handed because you have to perform simultaneous actions in most games but a cellphone must be one-handed. A gaming device needs buttons that can be pressed in the spur of a moment and in almost any combination. The buttons must be easy to press, not stiff like cellphone buttons. They must be placed in an ergonomic shape which takes up too much space to fit a keypad on there. The screen must be reasonably large when a phone only needs the screen for some secondary purposes. The requirements for cellphone controls and gaming controls are pretty incompatible.
An all-in-one device must solve these issues before it becomes a good platform for both purposes.
IMO there is little point to 3D games on something as small as a phone anyway.
Try playing a 3d game on the Nintendo DS and you'll find that it's entirely feasible.
What's with all the hype for Killzone 2? The first game was hyped like mad and ended up being buggy crap, why do people suddently have such high expectations for the sequel? How many devs go from total shit to killer app in one release?
However in Canada, in the EU and japan it came otu at approximately the same price point as the PS2 relative to inflation.
Which doesn't help as the thing is still 600€. Inflation adjustment doesn't cut it, electronics prices go down, not up.
Sure, some people can't tell, others don't care, some people just don't care because ear buds suck so bad. However, a lot of those people aren't in a position to lay out $500 for a video game system or HDTV either, so they're not exactly the market segment in question, are they?
If we argue that the PS3 will get anything better than last place then yes, they are in the market segment, just like the people who don't have 500$, those who don't plug their game system into a HDTV and those who don't care about Blu-Ray. Just because the product fails to appeal to those demographics doesn't mean they aren't important since the PS3's competition DOES appeal to those demographics.
My PDA uses both battery-powered RAM and flash (ignoring the CF card), the flash only holds a backup of the RAM program data but e.g. in the event of a power loss the whole data is wiped, including all programs and the OS which is where the flash backup comes into play. Flash is just too slow to replace the RAM and it wears out after too many writes, too.
Of course my cellphone keeps all its programs in flash and loads them into RAM on demand which causes awfully long load times...
Becasue someone just might be willing to provide the firepower to back it up?