It's E3, you either steal the show or you get totally ignored. If they save the release date for a months time they will have the news all to themselvs as everyone else burnt themselvs out at E3.
Nintendo arn't pulling punchs this time round. They got MAJOR press the week before E3 (hence stealing all the "WTF will they do at E3!?" press in 1 switch sweep), then they came out the corner swinging like a drunk hobo with the games list. They really are in an awesome position to dominate E3 from the week before to several weeks later.
Zonkie Zonkie Zonkie.. When do we get our cut in this little ring?
If I've ever seen an advertisement on slashdot (thank you ad block) this is it.. There is NOTHING remotely news worthy about this article, infact it is more or less a Google advert with more space and an icon.
Welcome to Slashdot : Livejournal style adverts since 2005!
You've got a good point. But most comic fans I know don't get bought stuff by their parents. Most "adult" mangas (aka doujis) normally have semi clad women in a sexual position on them. It's normally easy to pick them out.
Most the stuff you've described is from children's anime/manga. Most fans don't seem to get that Naruto/Whatever is aimed at children and will always be mostly childrens things. These are like the ten million live action "adventures for kids" we saw in the 90s. There is no maturity there, just all flash and trying to sell crap to others.
Couldn't this apply to everything? If you're out of the circle you have no idea who anyone is but the basic Spiderman, Superman and Batman. Same goes for Manga, you either know what stuff is about or you don't.
Not sure what you mean by Gundam-knock offs. But yes some series have a lot of content. Radio dramas and side storys are very common, but that's part of the culture. Games from Japan are no different and if anything are even worse. But then you can't tell me 12 X-men story lines isn't on par with this.
They take very few risks, so you end up with the same 10 movies/comics/stories over and over. That's the reason I like manga, it's more open to risks and you can find just about anything. I would argue with your point there.. Stuff that goes international tends to be the childish crap like Naruto, it's basic, simple and gets a huge fanbase because of how "cool" the fights are. Anime like this annoys everyone who doesn't want to give it a blowjob. Most of the really good stuff gets neglected and left to rot saddly.
Manga market : Release lots of disposable magazines, serialise what does well. Make an anime of anything that becomes really popular and continue on as such. While it may produce a lot of crap it gives a good chance to a lot of people. So you also get more gems.
Most the things you have listed still focus round 1 hero or guy with super powers. There's no real.. difference if you get my meaning. The market seems focused on super heroes or doing quirky little goth stories. It needs to open up beyond the "gritty guy fights something" or "Demonic entity appears and everyone must be saved" and so on and so forth. I mean that's the thing with manga, you can go from reading a story about 5 frogs invading Earth (Keroro Gunsou) to a story about a guy who gets super powers from stealing panties and wearing them (Hentai Kamen) right to a war drama (various Gundam things). There's just more variety out there than in the Western side.
I really don't think you can point the finger at any geeks here on Slashdot. It's like going "HAHA YOU FAT BASTARD!!! HAHA!" in the middle of a weight watchers meeting. You're just as geeky as the rest of us, when you're 30-40 you'll still do what you enjoy and you'll still be a geek.
As a bonus, the paper's 2001 manga-style tribute to manga (by the same artist, but with a dramatically different look and feel) has been reposted.
Maybe it's just me, but would anyone else like to see this die in the water ASAP? The reason I personally read manga is because I tend to find more mature stories on the topics I enjoy reading (Mecha mostly). The style doesn't make any difference what so ever, it's just there and will always be there. The only thing I really like about the style, is when they release compilation books and put 4komas at the end.
People miss the entire market that manga has. Other than the wannabe fans (who follow everything remotely "cool"), most fans will say exactly the same thing. "We're sick and tired of brainless crap, so we read manga because it has more of a plot than monster of the week". Western comics with mature themes just don't get seen outside of hardcore comic fans.
At my local comic shop half of the place is filled with collectables (Buffy figures, Marvel models etc.), there is half a wall with manga on it and then theres a second room which is nothing but Marvel/DC/whatever super hero brands are. Full to the brim of boxs of old children's comics. Some doujis and general hentai stuff thrown in and around. I couldn't pick out a single mature comic out of them all, so I went straight to the manga and picked up what I knew I'd enjoy (Gundam mangas in this case).
If the West truely wants to compare to anime and manga then it needs to buck up it's ideas. You can rip off the style and miss the entire point (Which is what you get from Megatokyo) or you can sit down and look at why it does well. Take it in the context that we British took food back in the empire. We never took the look, we took the taste and then changed the look to what we found more appealing (Curry being the major example).
Western authors need to focus on the plot and start marketing more than super hero comics to the masses. Start making movies out of the mature comics or at least start getting word out to outside the community.
In a very warped way webcomics and manga is bringing comics to a generation of kids. We can either go the power rangers route (rip everything worth while out like plot and just use the "style" AKA fights from the original. Changing the good plot to a worthless P&C amount of crap) or we can go a route where we improve by taking the good parts of something else and making a hybrid of our own.
Anyone who wants to argue, go read "Serenity", a "Christian manga". Which more or less does a poor wannabe style and gives the message "Trying to be yourself is wrong, fit in with the crowd. Your parents got divorced so you're going to turn into a prostitute with 12 kids on the dole". There is not a single part of that comic which is more than laughable and it sums up the entire copy cat industry nicely.
One thing a lot of said fans also forget is that Anno was so high at the time he could hardly walk. It's commonly known he had one hell of a drug problem.
But then hey Eva fans claim Eva killed Gundam X when it finished airing quite a while before Gundam X aired. Yet still they claim that's why it has the 6am slot it finally got (ignoring that it was the 4th Gundam series aired back to back for the past 4 years and general lack of angst).
Small power levels in a form which users low power levels to regulate things.. So not a good idea even when you put it that way.I mean it's very unlikely but what happens if it does some how effect your heart or your nerve system? These are both possible and extremely dangerous.
Remember how the early breast implants were all "bleeding edge" and awesome? Then we found out a few years later they may oh.. kill you? Same thing here I suspect. The people who decide to "be first" quite often find out 5-10 years later it harmed the body quite alot..
Now maybe it's just me but we hear a lot of stories about cancer being connected to various signals from things like mobile phones or microwaves. The RFID technology is still rather young and we don't know if it will have any sort of effect like this on the human body. Now would you implant a cell phone in your face with the current warnings?
You basicly sound either extremely lazy or just trying to be cool.. Neither of which is good for your health long term. Sit down and think about the next decade, consider what may or may not happen, how much it will cost and all these important things. Because once you've got it done it maybe too later to reverse it or any side effects you get.
Potatoes don't go very well on there own. They're the part of the meal which goes you good and fills you up. That's more or less the point of potatoes in every meal, they taste alright and fill you up. Where as vegetables taste great but arn't very filling (I'm talking peas and carrots for example). The meat is just the bit which tastes nice and finishs the meal off.
Eating any single thing on it's own won't do you much good. It's mixing and matching stuff which does you really good. People seem to forget once in a while "bad" food is really good for you. I mean today I ate a fry up.. tastes really quite good. Probably didn't do me "that" much good, but it perked my mood up alot and filled me up. Having one once a month or so it won't do you any real harm, same goes for any sort of "junk food".
There's an old saying and it goes "If you're going to do something, do it once and do it right". I've always thought this is what you should do with food. Eat well 90% of the time, but that one meal a month do it right and go all out. Eat exactly what you want and get rid of any cravings. It cures all them problems where people go "oh I just couldn't live without.." and screw up a healthy eating plan.
So hey maybe potatoes arn't going to do you much good. But they're not ment to be the only part of a meal, healthy eating is finding a balance between the good and the bad. Eating what you enjoy while not eating complete shit permantly.
This isn't news.. Last year someone did this at the largest gardening show in the UK. She had the water going uphill to add a major "water feature" to her design. Didn't get much press but unless theBBC just reversed their film it seemed pretty real to me.
Maybe it's just me.. but I still disagree. Mario kart DS on 150 CC is damn hard (from a guy who's finished them all except the GBA one which I never bought), I know a lot of casual gamers who can't even finished 100 CC.. I'll throw in online play too if you like.. Mario Kart is hardcore if you want it to be.
I have to disagree with "to cater to them". Nintendo make fun games.. if you're playing games isn't it to have fun? If you just want uber hard "ZOMG PWNED!" games you can get them, but Nintendo go "hey that's fine, but we like to have fun, throw in a few hard parts and just let everyone enjoy it". Last time I checked Mario games now had 100+ goals, some of which require split second timing or really difficult jumping puzzles.. Isn't that still aiming at the hardcore in a way? Not many will get all 120 stars in MArio 64, at least not in the casual market.
So is making a game fun not catering for people taking part in a hobby? Isn't that like saying "D&D isn't catering for hardcore gamers because it doesn't require you use 350 tables for this magic spell"?
Re:Did they do it on purpose?
on
Both Sides of Wii
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Couple of points..
Devil may cry is very much a hardcore game. It's not an easy game to pick up and play for newbies, and it only gets worse as you go on. DMC sells extremely well, hence there is a market.
Ninja Gaiden - same deal.
Mario kart - It's the complete and utter opposit. It's easy to play, it's fun for everyone and most of us hardcore players have grown up with it and love it. This is where I think Nintendo will go, because that's exactly where they have always been. They make fun games for everyone, not just the "ZOMG WE'RE HARDCORE" (like Microsoft failed to do) or the jack of all trades (which the PS2 tried to do).
Nintendo will honestly just sit down and go "Okay, how do we make people enjoy playing our games?" and then they'll probably use Mario in there some where. I'm a very elitest guy (Hey it's Slashdot), but I adore Nintendo and have since I first got my gameboy (all those years ago). Nintendo want people to have fun and enjoy themselvs, if these "hardcore" people don't get that, then I refuse to call them gamers. They're fashion whores with a game fetish.
Nintendo's current UK marketing compaign has 2 sides. One side is more or less a happy woman playing animal crossing and just enjoying herself. Being very careful and such. The other is basicly a guy going "PSST FONDLE MY DS BITCH!". So they really do have both fronts covered and I doubt it'd change any time soon.
Don't think Nintendo are shutting out the "real gamers" or that we don't matter. Nintendo are making fun games for everyone to enjoy, the "hardcore" has decided that being "cool" is more important than fun. The hardcore turned their back on Nintendo when they decided that having fun with Mario was too childish. Nintendo just kept making excellent games with the same characters they always have.
Funny enough I find myself the exception to what you've wrote, I tend to support the characters I like most and find intresting.
Best example I can give is Yzak Jule from Gundam SEED. For the entire first series (except 2 out of 50 episodes), he did nothing but get the legs cut off his robot and scream loudly at people. In the end everyone loved him because he was just so intresting to watch rather than the hero who had now got aimbot and god mode in his mecha.
While at the same time I support a character who had God mode and aimbot just the same as the hero. Because he was intresting to watch and did intresting stuff.
But you have to take into account the type of people who watch slasher flicks. They're the FPS players of the movie world and like cheap quick thrills of horror with very black and white characters. Would you say that people who play RTS games also just want to kill stuff or enjoy the tactics and fun?
Never some people in 1 group up with a broadstatement. They all have their own motivies and most of them boil down to "I do what I enjoy". They don't care what it is they enjoy, they just enjoy it because they do.
Personally I'd say skip the article. The poor writer clearly has no clue about anything but "being cool" in the geek way. For example "Of course, to call FFVII a role-playing game is to stretch the term to the point where it gets so thin you can see the veins through its skin"
Last time I checked playing a role could be where you have full control and make the character (western sandbox style RPGS), or where you take the hero and play as him, to tell the story (Eastern RPGs). The entire article comes across as a poorly written FF7 troll from the early 00s.
I may not be an FF7 fan (I'm sick of the fanboys, who isn't?), but when you claim it had poor music you know they're nuts. FF music has always been very good and although 7 isn't exceptionally good it's still not bad.
Plus I won't even go into the crap about Tomb raider. It's like a 10 year old going "LOL BLACK AND WHITE TV SUCKS!", because they live in an era where they can "see zee future!" and totally ignore the current climate for the object.
"The petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life"
Maybe it's just me here.. MAYBE.. but isn't life a meaningless exercise of not dying untill you die..? Surely being a failure at life means you're oh.. DEAD!
Maybe we should stop judging people on their job/material goods and go "Hey this guys doing something he enjoys, he's not doing too bad really is he?" Life is not what you own, what you buy or what you want to buy.
But you see I don't pirate latest games. Or games that intrest me I can pick up in the budget range. Only stuff from far away lands or to see if I want to purchase it.
I bought Sword of mana after I tried the rom for five minutes for example.
I don't burn games for the PS2 or use a flash cart for my DS. I buy for the latest stuff and just pirate for things I can't get and such.
Plus if I do pirate stuff I tend to support it in other ways. For example I'ma huge gundam fan but most games are Japan only, so I pirate them, but I go out and purchase plastic models (the main income for the Gundam franchise), to give support in other ways.
I'm not some "OMG I MUST HAVE A NEW GAME!" weekly person, infact the last time I bought a game was late january, when I got Sonic Rush. I'm still busy playing through Neverwinter, playing Silkroad online and playing Mario Kart DS over and over.
Re:Leave them "dead"
on
Abandoned Games
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Sonic 2 beta comes to mind.
Many really quirky Japanese titles you've never heard of which become legendary among small communities.
Many Japanese Playstation games. Dreamcast games in the same way.
You have to remember, some of us don't believe in credit cards. We also don't trust handing money over to someone who has a name like Superhappyboy9982 with top "karma", that his friends could of given him. Remember a lot of people are dodgy and I can't be bothered to trust them on a number you can easily manipulate.
Amazon is a good source for new stuff. But if I can't open the wrapping fresh from the factory I won't order it without checking it out in person. My "good condition" could be "Mint condition" to someone else just as easy as it could be "I threw it to the dog and he only sort of ate most of it.. but you can still read page 38 to 42 without any problems".
I live in England where we get royally shafted on the Japanese market. Getting most the stuff I want is extremely difficult, let alone trying to find a limited run Japanese SNES game which no one has even heard of outside the small community it's built up. I have at least 50 SNES games in a cupboard behind me from all over the world, just as many Mega drive/Genesis and such.
You could argue that because fans translated the old Shin Megami Tensei games on the SNES (and hence I pirated them), that ATLUS now have made 6-7 game purchases out of me. There is no way I would of found the Megaten series if they hadn't been pirated and translated, hence I wouldn't of taken any notice of ATLUS, hence I wouldn't of bought SMT3, DDS1, DDS2.
In the same way I couldn't get Super robot taisen. Now ATLUS has picked up the rights to the only 2 games they can release.. Guess who has both on pre-order?
So yea, maybe once in a while I decide to be cheap and "steal" a game. Maybe some times I can't get hold of them. But I see no problem with a little underhanded dealing as long as we both win in the end.
I suppose you've never done anything even remotely close to illegal. You're a regular perfect human being with no faults and everything right?
Leave them "dead"
on
Abandoned Games
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Personally I'd rather they left them in the "grey" area or released them as freeware. Quite often I've played a game left for dead, found it to be really worth it and hence became a fan of the company. I'd like to hope others have done this as well and hence we're all found some new games and new intrests.
I tend to pirate games I can't get any other way. If I could buy them then I woukd, but with the current market there just isn't space on the shelves for older games and the retailers would make no money off them so wouldn't even want to stock them.
Leave them where we can get them for free. That way we can check out the history and decide if the latest one would be worth investing in or not.
You're correct and incorrect at the same time. Watching anime and playing games isn't looked down on at all, it's considered normal for everyone untill they hit 14-15, at which time they more or less force their kids at knife point to be working on school work 7 days a week for 23 hours a day.
Being anti social is where the "problem" lays. Japan has a very 1984ish look on people being on their own. Everyone should be with others and constantly be doing something constructive, if you arn't you must be "one of them outsiders" and you get weird looks and such.
Plus in Japan you work to the bone and you accept it. That's how the society is and always will be.. but watching anime or playing games isn't looked down on, it's the fact that you arn't at work and arn't around people/in a social club that is.
Right.. firstly I can tell you why games today don't compare to yesterdays games. It's the same reason todays best cars don't get you from A to B as effective (cheaply) as yesterday. We have too much power so we forget that cars are vechiles not cock extensions.
People forget that games are ment to be fun. The thing aboy all those classic games is "lets just STFU and play, have a giggle, go home and we're done". It didn't try to change the world, impress you or dazzle you with eye candy. It just tried to entertain you..
If you have a PS2 give ICO a try. The US version has some stuff missing (nothing too major, just 1 puzzle is made easier and the replay features are removed (but nothing gamefaqs can't give you with less effort). It's a classic puzzle game, but it's beautiful at the same time. Combat is a secondary part of the game which basicly revolves around "hit stuff and run away". But where it REALLY shines and becomes a classic is it has the old lemmings/Broken sword/point and click style gameplay. You see a puzzle and you stare at it for hours.. try to work every little part and then at the very last second when you're about to give up you notice you missed the smallest thing and were looking at the completely wrong thing..
Simple things like a missed button or forgetting you can pull Yorda (the girl you lead around) up onto ledges changes a simple puzzle into hours of searching and trying.. but it's worth a rental if nothing else. Maybe you will see that not all games are about flash, some are beautiful while playing just like yesterday.
This guy was on the news a few days ago. He is not a hacker, he infact clearly corrected anyone who called him a hacker. He was a script kiddy, he got in over his head and he knew it. He got caught and openly admitted everything, he told them what programs he downloaded to use and exactly how he did it (he basicly port sniffed the hell out of the system and then kept trying default passwords and blank passwords untill he found something intresting).
The guy is afraid the US wants to make an example of him. He's clearly pointed out under the current "anti terror" laws, he could be arrested and held without trial untill they decide to let him go. Now maybe it's just me here, but I'm also afraid of these anti terror laws. After all he commited the crime on UK soil, he has hence broken the British laws, so he should be put on trial here. Where the crime was commited and where he believes he will get a fair trial.
MS don't seem to get they are the anti Japanese gamer. Not only are the Japanese rather racist in aspects of what they buy (among other things), they also don't want the games MS is selling. MS is selling to the "OMG THAT'S LIKE SO EXTREME!" market, where as Japanese gamers like cute games which are fun to play, explore and just have a good time in. MS wants games to be super fantasticly real gun weilding massacres.. The two just don't go together.
Call it a write off on the console, you won't crack Japan this time. Next time release some Japanese RPGs, some anime tie ins (I'm sure Xbox live could make use of a Gundam generation or Super robot taisen game where you trade units and such). Then hope you get it right.
The Xbox has hardly done anything in the West (Do you know anyone who cares about anything but Halo? I don't), the 360 is one hell of a joke (OMG FIRE! etc) and well, MS seem to have the impression they're cleaning up with the 360 and Japan's the red haired step child who refuses to "play fair"
This is all fine and dandy untill it hits a kid. Then who is to blame for it? The driver, the company who make the car or none of the above (which I bet the company will try to claim)?
Slashdot Mirror
It's E3, you either steal the show or you get totally ignored. If they save the release date for a months time they will have the news all to themselvs as everyone else burnt themselvs out at E3.
Nintendo arn't pulling punchs this time round. They got MAJOR press the week before E3 (hence stealing all the "WTF will they do at E3!?" press in 1 switch sweep), then they came out the corner swinging like a drunk hobo with the games list. They really are in an awesome position to dominate E3 from the week before to several weeks later.
Zonkie Zonkie Zonkie.. When do we get our cut in this little ring?
If I've ever seen an advertisement on slashdot (thank you ad block) this is it.. There is NOTHING remotely news worthy about this article, infact it is more or less a Google advert with more space and an icon.
Welcome to Slashdot : Livejournal style adverts since 2005!
Turn-X Alphonse (789240)
woolio (927141)
Pardon?
Normally the ads are at least a little hidden as an article and even then someone makes a post like mine. I just got to it first.
Reads just like a google text ad.. How.. strange.
Come on Taco, you know as well as I do this is a worthless advertisement at best.
May as well make this a full conversation.
You've got a good point. But most comic fans I know don't get bought stuff by their parents. Most "adult" mangas (aka doujis) normally have semi clad women in a sexual position on them. It's normally easy to pick them out.
Most the stuff you've described is from children's anime/manga. Most fans don't seem to get that Naruto/Whatever is aimed at children and will always be mostly childrens things. These are like the ten million live action "adventures for kids" we saw in the 90s. There is no maturity there, just all flash and trying to sell crap to others.
Couldn't this apply to everything? If you're out of the circle you have no idea who anyone is but the basic Spiderman, Superman and Batman. Same goes for Manga, you either know what stuff is about or you don't.
Not sure what you mean by Gundam-knock offs. But yes some series have a lot of content. Radio dramas and side storys are very common, but that's part of the culture. Games from Japan are no different and if anything are even worse. But then you can't tell me 12 X-men story lines isn't on par with this.
They take very few risks, so you end up with the same 10 movies/comics/stories over and over. That's the reason I like manga, it's more open to risks and you can find just about anything. I would argue with your point there.. Stuff that goes international tends to be the childish crap like Naruto, it's basic, simple and gets a huge fanbase because of how "cool" the fights are. Anime like this annoys everyone who doesn't want to give it a blowjob. Most of the really good stuff gets neglected and left to rot saddly.
Manga market : Release lots of disposable magazines, serialise what does well. Make an anime of anything that becomes really popular and continue on as such. While it may produce a lot of crap it gives a good chance to a lot of people. So you also get more gems.
Most the things you have listed still focus round 1 hero or guy with super powers. There's no real.. difference if you get my meaning. The market seems focused on super heroes or doing quirky little goth stories. It needs to open up beyond the "gritty guy fights something" or "Demonic entity appears and everyone must be saved" and so on and so forth. I mean that's the thing with manga, you can go from reading a story about 5 frogs invading Earth (Keroro Gunsou) to a story about a guy who gets super powers from stealing panties and wearing them (Hentai Kamen) right to a war drama (various Gundam things). There's just more variety out there than in the Western side.
I really don't think you can point the finger at any geeks here on Slashdot. It's like going "HAHA YOU FAT BASTARD!!! HAHA!" in the middle of a weight watchers meeting. You're just as geeky as the rest of us, when you're 30-40 you'll still do what you enjoy and you'll still be a geek.
As a bonus, the paper's 2001 manga-style tribute to manga (by the same artist, but with a dramatically different look and feel) has been reposted.
Maybe it's just me, but would anyone else like to see this die in the water ASAP? The reason I personally read manga is because I tend to find more mature stories on the topics I enjoy reading (Mecha mostly). The style doesn't make any difference what so ever, it's just there and will always be there. The only thing I really like about the style, is when they release compilation books and put 4komas at the end.
People miss the entire market that manga has. Other than the wannabe fans (who follow everything remotely "cool"), most fans will say exactly the same thing. "We're sick and tired of brainless crap, so we read manga because it has more of a plot than monster of the week". Western comics with mature themes just don't get seen outside of hardcore comic fans.
At my local comic shop half of the place is filled with collectables (Buffy figures, Marvel models etc.), there is half a wall with manga on it and then theres a second room which is nothing but Marvel/DC/whatever super hero brands are. Full to the brim of boxs of old children's comics. Some doujis and general hentai stuff thrown in and around. I couldn't pick out a single mature comic out of them all, so I went straight to the manga and picked up what I knew I'd enjoy (Gundam mangas in this case).
If the West truely wants to compare to anime and manga then it needs to buck up it's ideas. You can rip off the style and miss the entire point (Which is what you get from Megatokyo) or you can sit down and look at why it does well. Take it in the context that we British took food back in the empire. We never took the look, we took the taste and then changed the look to what we found more appealing (Curry being the major example).
Western authors need to focus on the plot and start marketing more than super hero comics to the masses. Start making movies out of the mature comics or at least start getting word out to outside the community.
In a very warped way webcomics and manga is bringing comics to a generation of kids. We can either go the power rangers route (rip everything worth while out like plot and just use the "style" AKA fights from the original. Changing the good plot to a worthless P&C amount of crap) or we can go a route where we improve by taking the good parts of something else and making a hybrid of our own.
Anyone who wants to argue, go read "Serenity", a "Christian manga". Which more or less does a poor wannabe style and gives the message "Trying to be yourself is wrong, fit in with the crowd. Your parents got divorced so you're going to turn into a prostitute with 12 kids on the dole". There is not a single part of that comic which is more than laughable and it sums up the entire copy cat industry nicely.
One thing a lot of said fans also forget is that Anno was so high at the time he could hardly walk. It's commonly known he had one hell of a drug problem.
But then hey Eva fans claim Eva killed Gundam X when it finished airing quite a while before Gundam X aired. Yet still they claim that's why it has the 6am slot it finally got (ignoring that it was the 4th Gundam series aired back to back for the past 4 years and general lack of angst).
Small power levels in a form which users low power levels to regulate things.. So not a good idea even when you put it that way.I mean it's very unlikely but what happens if it does some how effect your heart or your nerve system? These are both possible and extremely dangerous.
Remember how the early breast implants were all "bleeding edge" and awesome? Then we found out a few years later they may oh.. kill you? Same thing here I suspect. The people who decide to "be first" quite often find out 5-10 years later it harmed the body quite alot..
Now maybe it's just me but we hear a lot of stories about cancer being connected to various signals from things like mobile phones or microwaves. The RFID technology is still rather young and we don't know if it will have any sort of effect like this on the human body. Now would you implant a cell phone in your face with the current warnings?
You basicly sound either extremely lazy or just trying to be cool.. Neither of which is good for your health long term. Sit down and think about the next decade, consider what may or may not happen, how much it will cost and all these important things. Because once you've got it done it maybe too later to reverse it or any side effects you get.
Potatoes don't go very well on there own. They're the part of the meal which goes you good and fills you up. That's more or less the point of potatoes in every meal, they taste alright and fill you up. Where as vegetables taste great but arn't very filling (I'm talking peas and carrots for example). The meat is just the bit which tastes nice and finishs the meal off.
Eating any single thing on it's own won't do you much good. It's mixing and matching stuff which does you really good. People seem to forget once in a while "bad" food is really good for you. I mean today I ate a fry up.. tastes really quite good. Probably didn't do me "that" much good, but it perked my mood up alot and filled me up. Having one once a month or so it won't do you any real harm, same goes for any sort of "junk food".
There's an old saying and it goes "If you're going to do something, do it once and do it right". I've always thought this is what you should do with food. Eat well 90% of the time, but that one meal a month do it right and go all out. Eat exactly what you want and get rid of any cravings. It cures all them problems where people go "oh I just couldn't live without.." and screw up a healthy eating plan.
So hey maybe potatoes arn't going to do you much good. But they're not ment to be the only part of a meal, healthy eating is finding a balance between the good and the bad. Eating what you enjoy while not eating complete shit permantly.
This isn't news.. Last year someone did this at the largest gardening show in the UK. She had the water going uphill to add a major "water feature" to her design. Didn't get much press but unless theBBC just reversed their film it seemed pretty real to me.
Maybe it's just me.. but I still disagree. Mario kart DS on 150 CC is damn hard (from a guy who's finished them all except the GBA one which I never bought), I know a lot of casual gamers who can't even finished 100 CC.. I'll throw in online play too if you like.. Mario Kart is hardcore if you want it to be.
I have to disagree with "to cater to them". Nintendo make fun games.. if you're playing games isn't it to have fun? If you just want uber hard "ZOMG PWNED!" games you can get them, but Nintendo go "hey that's fine, but we like to have fun, throw in a few hard parts and just let everyone enjoy it". Last time I checked Mario games now had 100+ goals, some of which require split second timing or really difficult jumping puzzles.. Isn't that still aiming at the hardcore in a way? Not many will get all 120 stars in MArio 64, at least not in the casual market.
So is making a game fun not catering for people taking part in a hobby? Isn't that like saying "D&D isn't catering for hardcore gamers because it doesn't require you use 350 tables for this magic spell"?
Couple of points..
Devil may cry is very much a hardcore game. It's not an easy game to pick up and play for newbies, and it only gets worse as you go on. DMC sells extremely well, hence there is a market.
Ninja Gaiden - same deal.
Mario kart - It's the complete and utter opposit. It's easy to play, it's fun for everyone and most of us hardcore players have grown up with it and love it. This is where I think Nintendo will go, because that's exactly where they have always been. They make fun games for everyone, not just the "ZOMG WE'RE HARDCORE" (like Microsoft failed to do) or the jack of all trades (which the PS2 tried to do).
Nintendo will honestly just sit down and go "Okay, how do we make people enjoy playing our games?" and then they'll probably use Mario in there some where. I'm a very elitest guy (Hey it's Slashdot), but I adore Nintendo and have since I first got my gameboy (all those years ago). Nintendo want people to have fun and enjoy themselvs, if these "hardcore" people don't get that, then I refuse to call them gamers. They're fashion whores with a game fetish.
Nintendo's current UK marketing compaign has 2 sides. One side is more or less a happy woman playing animal crossing and just enjoying herself. Being very careful and such. The other is basicly a guy going "PSST FONDLE MY DS BITCH!". So they really do have both fronts covered and I doubt it'd change any time soon.
Don't think Nintendo are shutting out the "real gamers" or that we don't matter. Nintendo are making fun games for everyone to enjoy, the "hardcore" has decided that being "cool" is more important than fun. The hardcore turned their back on Nintendo when they decided that having fun with Mario was too childish. Nintendo just kept making excellent games with the same characters they always have.
Funny enough I find myself the exception to what you've wrote, I tend to support the characters I like most and find intresting.
Best example I can give is Yzak Jule from Gundam SEED. For the entire first series (except 2 out of 50 episodes), he did nothing but get the legs cut off his robot and scream loudly at people. In the end everyone loved him because he was just so intresting to watch rather than the hero who had now got aimbot and god mode in his mecha.
While at the same time I support a character who had God mode and aimbot just the same as the hero. Because he was intresting to watch and did intresting stuff.
But you have to take into account the type of people who watch slasher flicks. They're the FPS players of the movie world and like cheap quick thrills of horror with very black and white characters. Would you say that people who play RTS games also just want to kill stuff or enjoy the tactics and fun?
Never some people in 1 group up with a broadstatement. They all have their own motivies and most of them boil down to "I do what I enjoy". They don't care what it is they enjoy, they just enjoy it because they do.
Personally I'd say skip the article. The poor writer clearly has no clue about anything but "being cool" in the geek way. For example "Of course, to call FFVII a role-playing game is to stretch the term to the point where it gets so thin you can see the veins through its skin"
Last time I checked playing a role could be where you have full control and make the character (western sandbox style RPGS), or where you take the hero and play as him, to tell the story (Eastern RPGs). The entire article comes across as a poorly written FF7 troll from the early 00s.
I may not be an FF7 fan (I'm sick of the fanboys, who isn't?), but when you claim it had poor music you know they're nuts. FF music has always been very good and although 7 isn't exceptionally good it's still not bad.
Plus I won't even go into the crap about Tomb raider. It's like a 10 year old going "LOL BLACK AND WHITE TV SUCKS!", because they live in an era where they can "see zee future!" and totally ignore the current climate for the object.
"The petty tyrant of a tiny little niche of the Internet but a failure in real life"
Maybe it's just me here.. MAYBE.. but isn't life a meaningless exercise of not dying untill you die..? Surely being a failure at life means you're oh.. DEAD!
Maybe we should stop judging people on their job/material goods and go "Hey this guys doing something he enjoys, he's not doing too bad really is he?" Life is not what you own, what you buy or what you want to buy.
But you see I don't pirate latest games. Or games that intrest me I can pick up in the budget range. Only stuff from far away lands or to see if I want to purchase it.
I bought Sword of mana after I tried the rom for five minutes for example.
I don't burn games for the PS2 or use a flash cart for my DS. I buy for the latest stuff and just pirate for things I can't get and such.
Plus if I do pirate stuff I tend to support it in other ways. For example I'ma huge gundam fan but most games are Japan only, so I pirate them, but I go out and purchase plastic models (the main income for the Gundam franchise), to give support in other ways.
I'm not some "OMG I MUST HAVE A NEW GAME!" weekly person, infact the last time I bought a game was late january, when I got Sonic Rush. I'm still busy playing through Neverwinter, playing Silkroad online and playing Mario Kart DS over and over.
Sonic 2 beta comes to mind.
Many really quirky Japanese titles you've never heard of which become legendary among small communities.
Many Japanese Playstation games. Dreamcast games in the same way.
You have to remember, some of us don't believe in credit cards. We also don't trust handing money over to someone who has a name like Superhappyboy9982 with top "karma", that his friends could of given him. Remember a lot of people are dodgy and I can't be bothered to trust them on a number you can easily manipulate.
Amazon is a good source for new stuff. But if I can't open the wrapping fresh from the factory I won't order it without checking it out in person. My "good condition" could be "Mint condition" to someone else just as easy as it could be "I threw it to the dog and he only sort of ate most of it.. but you can still read page 38 to 42 without any problems".
I live in England where we get royally shafted on the Japanese market. Getting most the stuff I want is extremely difficult, let alone trying to find a limited run Japanese SNES game which no one has even heard of outside the small community it's built up. I have at least 50 SNES games in a cupboard behind me from all over the world, just as many Mega drive/Genesis and such.
You could argue that because fans translated the old Shin Megami Tensei games on the SNES (and hence I pirated them), that ATLUS now have made 6-7 game purchases out of me. There is no way I would of found the Megaten series if they hadn't been pirated and translated, hence I wouldn't of taken any notice of ATLUS, hence I wouldn't of bought SMT3, DDS1, DDS2.
In the same way I couldn't get Super robot taisen. Now ATLUS has picked up the rights to the only 2 games they can release.. Guess who has both on pre-order?
So yea, maybe once in a while I decide to be cheap and "steal" a game. Maybe some times I can't get hold of them. But I see no problem with a little underhanded dealing as long as we both win in the end.
I suppose you've never done anything even remotely close to illegal. You're a regular perfect human being with no faults and everything right?
Personally I'd rather they left them in the "grey" area or released them as freeware. Quite often I've played a game left for dead, found it to be really worth it and hence became a fan of the company. I'd like to hope others have done this as well and hence we're all found some new games and new intrests.
I tend to pirate games I can't get any other way. If I could buy them then I woukd, but with the current market there just isn't space on the shelves for older games and the retailers would make no money off them so wouldn't even want to stock them.
Leave them where we can get them for free. That way we can check out the history and decide if the latest one would be worth investing in or not.
I've laid into Zonk and Micheal repeatedly. I'm constantly insulting both of them and yet I still get mod points every other week.
I suggest you check what else you've been up to and think about that.
You're correct and incorrect at the same time. Watching anime and playing games isn't looked down on at all, it's considered normal for everyone untill they hit 14-15, at which time they more or less force their kids at knife point to be working on school work 7 days a week for 23 hours a day.
Being anti social is where the "problem" lays. Japan has a very 1984ish look on people being on their own. Everyone should be with others and constantly be doing something constructive, if you arn't you must be "one of them outsiders" and you get weird looks and such.
Plus in Japan you work to the bone and you accept it. That's how the society is and always will be.. but watching anime or playing games isn't looked down on, it's the fact that you arn't at work and arn't around people/in a social club that is.
Right.. firstly I can tell you why games today don't compare to yesterdays games. It's the same reason todays best cars don't get you from A to B as effective (cheaply) as yesterday. We have too much power so we forget that cars are vechiles not cock extensions.
People forget that games are ment to be fun. The thing aboy all those classic games is "lets just STFU and play, have a giggle, go home and we're done". It didn't try to change the world, impress you or dazzle you with eye candy. It just tried to entertain you..
If you have a PS2 give ICO a try. The US version has some stuff missing (nothing too major, just 1 puzzle is made easier and the replay features are removed (but nothing gamefaqs can't give you with less effort). It's a classic puzzle game, but it's beautiful at the same time. Combat is a secondary part of the game which basicly revolves around "hit stuff and run away". But where it REALLY shines and becomes a classic is it has the old lemmings/Broken sword/point and click style gameplay. You see a puzzle and you stare at it for hours.. try to work every little part and then at the very last second when you're about to give up you notice you missed the smallest thing and were looking at the completely wrong thing..
Simple things like a missed button or forgetting you can pull Yorda (the girl you lead around) up onto ledges changes a simple puzzle into hours of searching and trying.. but it's worth a rental if nothing else. Maybe you will see that not all games are about flash, some are beautiful while playing just like yesterday.
This guy was on the news a few days ago. He is not a hacker, he infact clearly corrected anyone who called him a hacker. He was a script kiddy, he got in over his head and he knew it. He got caught and openly admitted everything, he told them what programs he downloaded to use and exactly how he did it (he basicly port sniffed the hell out of the system and then kept trying default passwords and blank passwords untill he found something intresting).
The guy is afraid the US wants to make an example of him. He's clearly pointed out under the current "anti terror" laws, he could be arrested and held without trial untill they decide to let him go. Now maybe it's just me here, but I'm also afraid of these anti terror laws. After all he commited the crime on UK soil, he has hence broken the British laws, so he should be put on trial here. Where the crime was commited and where he believes he will get a fair trial.
MS don't seem to get they are the anti Japanese gamer. Not only are the Japanese rather racist in aspects of what they buy (among other things), they also don't want the games MS is selling. MS is selling to the "OMG THAT'S LIKE SO EXTREME!" market, where as Japanese gamers like cute games which are fun to play, explore and just have a good time in. MS wants games to be super fantasticly real gun weilding massacres.. The two just don't go together.
Call it a write off on the console, you won't crack Japan this time. Next time release some Japanese RPGs, some anime tie ins (I'm sure Xbox live could make use of a Gundam generation or Super robot taisen game where you trade units and such). Then hope you get it right.
The Xbox has hardly done anything in the West (Do you know anyone who cares about anything but Halo? I don't), the 360 is one hell of a joke (OMG FIRE! etc) and well, MS seem to have the impression they're cleaning up with the 360 and Japan's the red haired step child who refuses to "play fair"
This is all fine and dandy untill it hits a kid. Then who is to blame for it? The driver, the company who make the car or none of the above (which I bet the company will try to claim)?