I've read claims that there was an attempt at porting FF7 to the N64 (using the same tech as used for RE2), it was almost done but Square didn't want to release it.
Personally I dislike Steam. I don't start it very often and when I do it usually has found a new patch and won't let me play for minutes before it's finished downloading (at which point I've already found another game to play). Also it requires an unrestricted internet connection to work, you may not have that available at all times (especially if your home connection will not let Steam through, happens in student homes). I prefer the system used by Earth 2160 (the retail version, they probably replaced it with Steam for the Steam version), it works like the Windows product activation, one short connection (or a phone call if no connection is available) and it's enabled and won't ever bug you again. No CD needed (in fact there's no copy protection on the CDs so you can make backups if you please), no internet connection needed, no self-updating application needed. Also it's easier to crack so if the servers would cease to exist it's more likely to remain usable than a Steam game.
The CD data is incomplete and encrypted, you need to download stuff via Steam and let it decrypt the data before you can play. While the installer will complete without the connection, you can't play before Steam has downloaded its 20-odd megabytes for unlocking the game plus whatever patches are available.
Student homes often use the University network, many University networks block non-http connections (before you suggest tunnelling, they filter that). Valve knows about that and doesn't want to provide a solution. Don't ask me why they can't seem to implement a simple download service via HTTP, I bought a game online using ReflexiveArcade and that had no trouble working over HTTP.
Blizzard isn'`t a publisher, they're a division of Vivendi Universal Games. That's why you don't see third party titles carry the Blizzard name.
Most EA games are developed by EA, mostly because those who get published by EA often get bought out as well and thus become a part of EA. Maxis, Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood, they're all EA now. If you count those as external you may have a point (though those bought studios usually get fully integrated into EA very quickly so there isn't a distinction between EA and a bought dev house for very long). EA's biggest source of income is probably EA Sports and there's no way you can call that external.
There are owls instead of goombas in The Great Giana Sisters and there is a hack that replaces the sisters with the Mario brothers. During my childhood I jumped over many owls with Mario.
There are also the owls in Super Mario Land 2 but since they work as floating platforms jumping over them (instead of onto them) means certain death.
Right wing socialism is a contradiction because socialism is by definition the left side of the spectrum (with the left extreme being communism). The right wing is nationalism and in its extreme form fascism. Left wing is "government owned by the people", right wing is "people owned by the government".
If you can't see the astoundingly low number of textures in The Bouncer your either blind or don't know what a texture is.
I think the bloom effect has made me go blind. But every surface looks textured (even though the textures lack detail) and I don't think RE4 or Bouncer use multitexturing (much) so I don't see why the polygon performance should differ. I don't believe the Bouncer game has more polygons than RE4 on screen.
I'm not saying the PS2 is good, quite the opposite: I'm disputing the idea that the PS2 has a higher "raw polygon" performance than the competing consoles by using the transitive property (polygonwise: PS2 Bouncer <= PS2 RE4 < GC RE4).
I hope that's sarcasm because we're talking about a game that has DRM so far up its arse it's hanging out of its nose. Sure you can resell it, if you pay 10$ in "handling fees" to Valve so they unregister your CD key.
Excuse me? RE4 had 10000 polygons in the main character and 5000 in the NPCs on the Gamecube. For that generation that number is HUGE. Going by the screenshots from "The Bouncer" (that game was before I cared about console gaming again) the environments are simple and there aren't many characters in play at the same time. Looks like a normal fighting game to me, those can afford throwing tons of polygons at the characters (though I don't see that "very little texturing" you mention). Nearest comparison is Tekken 5 with that moonshine field stage where everything goes blurry. I wouldn't say DoA 2 looks much worse either and that had the same polygon numbers on the Dreamcast. Also, Bouncer blurs the screen a lot so the visibility of polygon edges is greatly reduced.
I'm currently rediscovering TA because I looked at TA Spring again and it seems to work well nowadays. Though I haven't found a decent AI for skirmishes yet...
You said, "If you look carefully at PS2 games versus Gamecube games, you'll notice that PS2 models are substantially higher in polygon count, while Gamecube models tend to mask lower-polygon counts with rich textures and special effects." I don't really see that - the main thing I notice on PS2 is that everything is so darn blocky.
A more direct comparison is the PS2 port of Resident Evil 4, the devs said they had to cut the polygon numbers by half to make that work.
Slashdot Mirror
I've read claims that there was an attempt at porting FF7 to the N64 (using the same tech as used for RE2), it was almost done but Square didn't want to release it.
Personally I dislike Steam. I don't start it very often and when I do it usually has found a new patch and won't let me play for minutes before it's finished downloading (at which point I've already found another game to play). Also it requires an unrestricted internet connection to work, you may not have that available at all times (especially if your home connection will not let Steam through, happens in student homes). I prefer the system used by Earth 2160 (the retail version, they probably replaced it with Steam for the Steam version), it works like the Windows product activation, one short connection (or a phone call if no connection is available) and it's enabled and won't ever bug you again. No CD needed (in fact there's no copy protection on the CDs so you can make backups if you please), no internet connection needed, no self-updating application needed. Also it's easier to crack so if the servers would cease to exist it's more likely to remain usable than a Steam game.
The CD data is incomplete and encrypted, you need to download stuff via Steam and let it decrypt the data before you can play. While the installer will complete without the connection, you can't play before Steam has downloaded its 20-odd megabytes for unlocking the game plus whatever patches are available.
Student homes often use the University network, many University networks block non-http connections (before you suggest tunnelling, they filter that). Valve knows about that and doesn't want to provide a solution. Don't ask me why they can't seem to implement a simple download service via HTTP, I bought a game online using ReflexiveArcade and that had no trouble working over HTTP.
I don't see how the movie industry is stealing back here.
AFAIK Counterstrike is popular in Korea, too.
If we only count the different types of attributes instead of every attribute and add the uniques that's still a whole lot of items.
The difference is while Blizzard delays and brings out an almost flawless product, Valve delays and delivers a buggy game.
Blizzard isn'`t a publisher, they're a division of Vivendi Universal Games. That's why you don't see third party titles carry the Blizzard name.
Most EA games are developed by EA, mostly because those who get published by EA often get bought out as well and thus become a part of EA. Maxis, Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood, they're all EA now. If you count those as external you may have a point (though those bought studios usually get fully integrated into EA very quickly so there isn't a distinction between EA and a bought dev house for very long). EA's biggest source of income is probably EA Sports and there's no way you can call that external.
Are you sure about Starcraft being the most popular? Counterstrike has many followers and paid professional gamers as well.
Maybe he's an East German emigrant?
There are owls instead of goombas in The Great Giana Sisters and there is a hack that replaces the sisters with the Mario brothers. During my childhood I jumped over many owls with Mario.
There are also the owls in Super Mario Land 2 but since they work as floating platforms jumping over them (instead of onto them) means certain death.
If it wasn't for the trouble getting tickets I'd say "sure, as long as you live close to the border".
Right wing socialism is a contradiction because socialism is by definition the left side of the spectrum (with the left extreme being communism). The right wing is nationalism and in its extreme form fascism. Left wing is "government owned by the people", right wing is "people owned by the government".
hmm - do you know if SETI saves any recordings of the past signals they intercept?
Of course not. They don't want aliens to invade our planet and destroy humanity for copyright infringement.
If you can't see the astoundingly low number of textures in The Bouncer your either blind or don't know what a texture is.
I think the bloom effect has made me go blind. But every surface looks textured (even though the textures lack detail) and I don't think RE4 or Bouncer use multitexturing (much) so I don't see why the polygon performance should differ. I don't believe the Bouncer game has more polygons than RE4 on screen.
I'm not saying the PS2 is good, quite the opposite: I'm disputing the idea that the PS2 has a higher "raw polygon" performance than the competing consoles by using the transitive property (polygonwise: PS2 Bouncer <= PS2 RE4 < GC RE4).
I hope that's sarcasm because we're talking about a game that has DRM so far up its arse it's hanging out of its nose. Sure you can resell it, if you pay 10$ in "handling fees" to Valve so they unregister your CD key.
$20 bucks for 5 hours of gameplay sounds very reasonable to me, and pretty cheap considering the alternatives.
What alternatives? You mean the 40 hour games for 50$?
Nope, that zoom was his (admittedly clumsy) joke going over YOUR head.
Excuse me? RE4 had 10000 polygons in the main character and 5000 in the NPCs on the Gamecube. For that generation that number is HUGE. Going by the screenshots from "The Bouncer" (that game was before I cared about console gaming again) the environments are simple and there aren't many characters in play at the same time. Looks like a normal fighting game to me, those can afford throwing tons of polygons at the characters (though I don't see that "very little texturing" you mention). Nearest comparison is Tekken 5 with that moonshine field stage where everything goes blurry. I wouldn't say DoA 2 looks much worse either and that had the same polygon numbers on the Dreamcast. Also, Bouncer blurs the screen a lot so the visibility of polygon edges is greatly reduced.
Since I prefer to carry a magazine around with me I'd rather buy the 105 pages one than the 400 pages because that means less weight to carry.
I'm currently rediscovering TA because I looked at TA Spring again and it seems to work well nowadays. Though I haven't found a decent AI for skirmishes yet...
I don't know what the PS2 is optimized for but I know devs regularly curse the bottlenecks in the system.
You said, "If you look carefully at PS2 games versus Gamecube games, you'll notice that PS2 models are substantially higher in polygon count, while Gamecube models tend to mask lower-polygon counts with rich textures and special effects." I don't really see that - the main thing I notice on PS2 is that everything is so darn blocky.
A more direct comparison is the PS2 port of Resident Evil 4, the devs said they had to cut the polygon numbers by half to make that work.