We like sequels because instead of buying every Burnout, Splinter Cell, Ratchet & Clank, DBZ: Budakai, Metal Gear Solid, that comes out, we can just buy the one with the best review score, or the one with the features we want (for me offline coop and versus modes, and low required play times). This, of course, assumes we have the patience to wait for a good sample of each to come out.
This strategy is best if you just want to build a small games library of varied good games (good for entertaining guests). However, you might feel left out if a all the games in a frachise are really great, or if stories build upon eachother.
Here's the IGN Top 100 Games List Summary
on
IGN's Top 100 Games
·
· Score: 2, Informative
"Like last time, our criteria for this uber-list of games consisted of a variety of factors, including how good the game was compared to others at the time, the overall game design, how well it stood up over the long-haul, how influential it was in the realm of gaming and just plain how much fun we had playing the damn things." - the article
For those who don't want to read the articles explanation for each game.
IGN Top 100 Games 1. Super Mario Bros. 2. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3. Tetris 4. Sid Meier's Civilization II 5. Super Mario 64 6. Sid Meier's Pirates! 7. StarCraft 8. Street Fighter II 9. Star Wars: TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM 10. Super Metroid 11. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 12. X-COM: UFO Defense 13. Chrono Trigger 14. Rome: Total War 15. Super Mario Kart 16. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 17. Star Control 2 18. ICO 19. Metal Gear Solid 20. Ms. Pac Man 21. Deus Ex 22. Half-Life 23. Super Mario Bros. 3 24. Tecmo Super Bowl 25. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn 26. Final Fantasy II (IV) 27. Burnout 3: Takedown 28. Half-Life 2 29. GoldenEye 7 30. Halo 31. SimCity 2000 32. Resident Evil 4 33. God of War 34. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 35. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty 36. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 37. Wave Race 64 38. Madden NFL 2004 39. DOOM 40. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution 41. System Shock 2 42. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec 43. Soul Calibur 44. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island 45. Battlefield 1942 46. Super Mario World 47. NHL 94 48. The Secret of Mana 49. Grim Fandango 50. Wing Comander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi 51. Grand Theft Auto III 52. Metroid Prime 53. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings 54. Panzer Dragoon Saga 55. Fallout 56. Final Fantasy III (VI) 57. Mike Tyson's Punchout! 58. Super Smash Bros. Melee 59. Bionic Commando 60. Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle 61. Sam & Max Hit the Road 62. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time 63. Sonic the Hedgehog 64. Advance Wars 65. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat 66. Homeworld 67. Rayman 2: The Great Escape 68. Starsiege: Tribes 69. Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs 70. Pokemon Red/Blue 71. Half-Life: Counter-Strike 72. Galaga 73. Return Fire 74. Syndicate 75. Crimson Skies 76. Tetris Attack 77. Archon: The Light and The Dark 78. Star Wars 79. Shining Force II 80. Baseball Stars 81. Freedom Force 82. Gunstar Heroes 83. Contra 84. Ultima VII: The Black Gate 85. Prince of Persia 86. Final Fantasy X 87. Thief II: The Metal Age 88. Final Fantasy VII 89. Alone in the Dark 90. Master of Orion 91. Virtua Tennis 92. Dragon Warrior 93. Quake II 94. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 95. Herzog Zwei 96. Mafia 97. F-Zero 98. BattleToads 99. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss 100. River City Ransom
Gross revenue or number of units sold are a few of the ways that you could try to measure the goodness/popularity/influence of a game. You might also find the inflation adjusted gross revenue. Or divide the gross revenue by the revenue of the industry as a whole. Or divide the number of units sold by the estimated consumer base.
My point is that there are numerous ways to objectively determine goodness/popularity/influence of a game, but most of them rely on finding hard to find data. The games industry is not as open (or flamboyent) about game grosses as the movie industry.
Of course you could do as suggested and create a IMDB-like games database and have people vote. Of course, there might be vote stuffing like I found on a message board where John Wayne fans conspired to stuff his movie The Searchers to the top of IMDB. (I like his films too but come on, don't cheat).
Another way with such a database to determine the historical influence of a game would be by adding a section (probably moderator approved) where you could submit which games directly influence a given game. Then you could analyze the database as a whole and find the most influential games. However, some influence might be over or understated by such a system. For example would DOOM be the most influential game because nearly all FPSs have borrowed from it, and PONG be nearly influence-less because very few games actually borrowed from the gameplay (although it definitely inspired hords of people in from the 70's to early 80's to risk time and money to get a must-have arcade machine, or console game- yes I admit that it was only must-have at the time because there was nothing else). Such a system is currently being developed by academics to weight the influence of their papers. Somewhat easier for them because they already have to include references.
Furthermore the simplest and perhaps most accurate way to determine the most popular video games would be to simply conduct a statistically sound phone poll and ask people to name all the video games that they know off the top of their heads. Maybe you're wonderding why I would spend so much time writing about objectivity etc. Well I just read Freakonomics and it's a great book to read if you like thinking about the world.
Laser tag seems to have a higher cost of adoption and despite there being a built in scoring system, I've heard that sometimes its not so easy to get a direct hit.
For SuperSoakers, however, you can easily tell when someone has been shot. By the damp and dripping areas of their t-shirts. Unfortunately, there is still difficulty in determining a winner in a team-match.
One idea for a solution is this: after a concluding a team-match a team could strip their t-shirts, hand them to the other team, and wring the loose water into buckets. Whichever team has the least, amount of water wins. And by having the other team wring them out, they have an incentive to wring every last drop. But you would want the other team to watch so that they aren't adding extra water.
Of course if you wanted to make things really complicated you could do SuperSoaker Counterstrike and have a bunch of referees keep track of which body parts get hit and how often, but that's overkill methinks. Oh and if you are as worried about eyes as the Gamerdads are just use sunglasses.
Oh and Fantastic 4 is riddled with flaws, but the Thing costume was not a major one in comparison to the rest of the movie. A juvenile plot, simplistic characters, and not-so-intense action segments for an action movie did this movie in.
Oh and Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch CGI were sometimes reflecting mid-1990's quality.
Not to turn this into a movie debate, but I saw Fantastic 4 and The Thing was actually the best character in the movie. And he also looked more realistic (once you add rock sound effects) than any other of the 4 other than Invisible Girl, who obviously didn't have to look real.
For the next 10 or so years CGI elements will look bad when used improperly alongside live action. To make the CGI/live action composite scenes look believable, the movie makers need 2 things attention to detail (where needed) and artistic talent. In LOTR many of the long shots for larger battle sequences simply imployed blurred hordes of orcs and men as they charged or were knock around, which is fine. But when they had to develop the pivotal character Gollum, they definitely spent some time in making it look right.
A little art also goes a long way. A goofy-looking CGI character will probably always look fake. But by just putting the CGI element in a dark scene or making it shoot by real fast, you can get something to look real for half the effort/money. Also any odd looking human animations are dead giveaways.
Why not just accomodate the Republican's desires to kill people and improve education at the same time. Just ELIMINATE the bottom 10th percentile for each year in high school. That would be a pretty strong incentive.
Or we could just genetically engineer kids to be smarter and more motivated. We have the technology. A little money spent up front would save bundles in education costs. Lots of savants go through K-12 in a few years.
Then how do we keep nerds from becoming weak and easy targets?
Policy-wise schools should define nerds as anyone who acheives greater than a 3.2 GPA in college-prep classes and an uber-nerd as one with greater than a 3.6 GPA.
Then they can grant benefits to them such as the latest cool clothes, cell phones, and even allow them to have access to steroids. Who, then, will try to pick on the math nerd who can bench press 300 lbs and has a tendency for roid rage? Heck, why not subsidize the construction of battle mechs for the uber-nerds? Those who make fun of honor students result in their being nothing more than a pile of goo at the bottom of a giant mechanized footprint on the quad.
Maybe he just means that there are a lot of people in those countries that down own your US typical plot of suburban land and cottage. I know that a lot of people in Japan and China have apartments. I don't know if they rent. I know there is a substantial population of squatters in Philippines suburbs. Yes, it's still difficult to imagine any of the lower class of any of these countries playing Second Life for anything other than financial reasons.
Assumming that Google has enough cash on hand and the ultra-loyal big wigs (aka Gates, Ballmer, etc.) don't have a large enough stake, why couldn't Google buy Microsoft out and transform the company using their "don't be evil" company slogan. I know Slashdot isn't much for biblical quotes but in this context if Microsoft would "shall beat their swords into plowshares" I think I could start feeling good about corporate America again.
Imagine all the people using applications that work under both Linux and Open Windows.... You may say I'm a dreamer
I am a resident of California, and honestly I feel a little bad when I buy something on the internet that I could have purchased at a retail outlet. This is because I want to do my part to help the state out of its current financial crisis, and sales tax is one of the little ways that I can do this.
In database terms 4500+ different ways to calculate taxes in the US isn't really that many. How many retailers, products, and customers does Amazon already keep track of? Billions?! At this point of internet history, most online stores can figure out how to work with the governments to get them the proper sales tax revenues. The only online stores that would go out of business would be ones that rely soley upon the absence of taxes to get customers. Amazon, etc. rely on their super wide selection of products.
I agree with the parent post that we should end the subsidizing of online businesses by allowing them to avoid collecting sales taxes. Further, location of the purchasers should determine what entity would get the tax - otherwise every online retailer would just move their headquarters to Oregon. Yes, state and local governments should work together so there is a relatively simple system of collection and enforcement (at least on the big online stores).
I think Nexuis is supposed to mean "Next you is" as in Next to die. Anyway, just by comparing screenshots I would have to say that Nexuis seems more asthetically pleasing than Cube. Maybe its that the characters seem less ugly artistically.
The uncanny valley is bogus. It was research done for robot appearances that culminated in very life-like manequins. Yes, with better graphics poorly designed models, textures, and lighting can combine to make one scarey looking face. However, I don't think this "uncanny valley" is as uncrossable with todays graphics as is purported.
When I played Half-Life 2 on my medium-low end PC, the human characters were pretty dang believable at times. Of course Valve paid great attention to facial expressions, just like the Golum character played by Andy Serkis in LotR. This contrasts with the characters in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (those models could only smile with their lips and scowl with their eyebrows - they didn't utilize the entire face in a natural manner).
With films on the big screen, we usually spot out CGI elements, but when the entire film is CGI we just take it all in (much more immersive).
For games to deal with sex in a mature way, game developers need to realize that less is more. If you show everything it is no longer sexy, only stimulating. It stops being eroticism, and becomes porn. There is a reason that today's most artsy, cutting edge directors aren't doing porn films. There is a reason that Victoria's Secret keeps making money when you can get naked for free!
I am surprised by how many comments were basically suggesting "make Porn Game 346." There are plenty of those in Japan. I think the only way they could deal with sex in a mature way would be either to just use cutscenes that portray it in a artistic way. Or make a minigame out of it without showing everything. I haven't seen that part of God of War, but I am sure there are numerous tasteful ways of some kind of minigame that wouldn't deaden the emotional response. No matter how sex is portrayed it would have to be done in such a way that your girlfriend could be in the room and she would think it was romantic.
Here is a list of games that I compiled from a previous and very exaustive slashdot discussion thought were educational. I haven't played most of them, so some may have more educational merit than others.
Sim City
Sim Ant*
Sim Tower
Sim Farm
Sim Earth**
Sim Safari
The Incredible Machine Contraptions
Chromatron (puzzle)
Enigmo [pangeasoft.net]*
Zoo Tycoon
Roller Coaster Tycoon
Transport Tycoon w/ [ttdpatch.net]**
Railroad Tycoon
Test Drive
Celestia [shatters.net]*
Noctis [anywherebb.com]
Orbit [head-crash.com]*
Orbiter [ucl.ac.uk]**
FlightGear [flightgear.org]*
Also [tucows.com] and [freshmeat.net]
Sobokan
Oregon Trail
Core Wars (robot program)
Mindrover (robot program)
Bridge Builder/Pontifex or Bridge Construction Set**
Creatures
Civilization 3**
Tranquility
Polygon Worlds [polygonworlds.com]
Planet's Orbits [alcyone.de]
Partiview [haydenplanetarium.org]
Tuxtype [sourceforge.net]
Droid Battles [bluefire.nu]
MahJong [stevens-bradfield.com]
Settlers of Catan [sourceforge.net] [settlers3d.net]
JTEG [sourceforge.net]
Tetrinet [tetrinet.org]
Armagetron [sourceforge.net]
Search and Rescue [twu.net]
Astrobattle [astrobattle.com]
Tower Toppler [sourceforge.net]
MyLink [as-netz.de]
Airstrike [icculus.org]
XRick [bigorno.net]
Vegastrike [sourceforge.net]
Stoned [cute-ninjas.com] (curling simulation)
CarWorld [sourceforge.net]
Cannon Smash [sourceforge.net] (virtual Table tennis)
Sentry [eicart.free.fr]
Noiz2sa [asahi-net.or.jp]
rRootage [asahi-net.or.jp]
PowerManga [linux.tlk.fr]
Spheres of Chaos [streamerp2p.com]
Warblade [warblade.as]
Epiar [epiar.net]
Nethack [nethack.org]**
Wall Street Raider
WordWars [gamethoughts.com]
West Point Bridge Design [usma.edu]
Life & Death II: The Brain [mobygames.com]
Live For Speed [liveforspeed.net]*
Trucks [jet.ro]
Alice [alice.org]
Physicus [viva-media.com]**
Chemicus
Frozen Bubble (old C64 titles)
Raft Away River (old C64 titles)
Sheepdog Trails (old C64 titles)
Rocky's Boots (old C64 titles)
Goldfields (old C64 titles)
The Journey to Wild Divine
CyberLearning Technology (for ADD)
[www.selfesteemgames.mcgill.ca/]
Ben's Game [www.makewish.org/ben/]
FloodRanger**
Real Lives 2004**
Superpower 2**
Making History [muzzylane.com]**
Crusader Kings [paradox.com]**
Victoria [paradox.com]
Europa Universalis 2 [paradox.com]**
Hearts of Iron 2 [paradox.com]**
Pirates (2004)**
Colonization*
Combat Mission (all 3) [battlefront.com]**
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim**
America's Army**
Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich**
Total War (all 3)**
I break stuff in real life all the time. It's really cool!
Car breaks down - Dose it with gasoline and send it pinballing down a cliff with flames dancing to the sweet night music of destruction. Bump my head on a my basements low doorway - let the sledgehammer rain down wood splinters and chunks of drywall until I have enough headroom. Gumball machine steals my quarter - crowbar it into flying shards of glass and hundreds of colorful bouncing gumballs.
I'm telling you there's no limit to the number of life's problems that can be solved by breaking stuff. I already have all the particle effects, realistic physics, and CD quality audio I'll ever need.
I can't wait until the next, next Zelda comes out for the Revolution. Maybe they will have an even more adult Link, like 80 something. Of course he'd still be awesome and kicking butt (ala Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns).
They wouldn't have to give him walkers for weapons or Viagra for health potions though. They'd just make him older and wiser, and instead of having to prove himself to older people, he'd just have to kick the snot out of young wippersnappers that thought he was over the hill. Over the course of the game he would keep getting more and more permanent injuries. Think dentures, magical hip replacement, pacemakers, etc. Some levels would even randomize locations ever once and a while to simulate senility. And then, once the death blow to Gannon was delivered, he would die of a heart attack. Thus leaving Zelda a substantial life-insurance policy to cash in.
That would definitely bring a whole new demographic to Nintendo!
I haven't played FF games since FFII (US) and FFA for the GB (the Zelda clone), but my brother has played most of the newer ones, and I have done my fair share of reading from varied web sources on them.
The last RPG that I played to completion, and I would have to say the RPG that I enjoyed the most was Fallout on the PC. Mainly because of its insane amount of dialogue options coupled with its non-linear options of befriending/fighting/etc that all combine to affect your karma rating. This system has since been co-opted Knights of the Old Republic.
Finally, I get to my point which is that if S-E doesn't want to mess with a good thing then fine. But if they want to innovate they can look around to other games (RPG or not). Of course their lies the possibility that FF fans will reject whatever change they do make.
As for myself, I think the only way I would end up playing a FF game is if EITHER the game was just amazingly innovative, dubbed the best RPG of all time by Gamespot, had a 15 hour express version under the options, OR the game was renamed Grand Theft Chocobo.
Gamespot's coverage of the crap section of E3 was hilarious. Mainly slightly blurry digital photographs with milk-through-nose-spewingly funny captions below them. Either this is really funny or I am really tired.
Parents need to understand that RPGs DO teach children real world skills.
Kids that play RPGs understand intuitively that winnning the Lotto is nigh impossible because you would have to roll 1d4 and 7d10 and have them all turn out as 1's.
Kids that play RPGs are better prepared for the workforce because they know what it is like to work together as a team to reach a goal, only to have that goal squashed due to the GM's (aka boss') preconceived notion on how the adventure (aka project) should turn out.
And finally, kids that play RPGs know that you should never open a door, package, or anything else for that matter without first checking for traps.
Nintendo itself has stated that what it plans to use on Revolution isn't all that unique, only that it has never been applied to videogames. Taking that into account, plus recent patents filed by Nintendo, and it doesn't sound all that far fetched, argues Burgess.
I think it came with glasses. And although the 3-D mode wasn't top notch, it was 3-D. You could also turn the 3-D mode off. Have fun by running around a planet in four directions (NSEW) fighting impressive sprite dragons (although they didn't look like real dragons they did look quasi 3D).
Slashdot Mirror
We like sequels because instead of buying every Burnout, Splinter Cell, Ratchet & Clank, DBZ: Budakai, Metal Gear Solid, that comes out, we can just buy the one with the best review score, or the one with the features we want (for me offline coop and versus modes, and low required play times). This, of course, assumes we have the patience to wait for a good sample of each to come out.
This strategy is best if you just want to build a small games library of varied good games (good for entertaining guests). However, you might feel left out if a all the games in a frachise are really great, or if stories build upon eachother.
"Like last time, our criteria for this uber-list of games consisted of a variety of factors, including how good the game was compared to others at the time, the overall game design, how well it stood up over the long-haul, how influential it was in the realm of gaming and just plain how much fun we had playing the damn things." - the article
For those who don't want to read the articles explanation for each game.
IGN Top 100 Games
1. Super Mario Bros. 2. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3. Tetris 4. Sid Meier's Civilization II 5. Super Mario 64
6. Sid Meier's Pirates! 7. StarCraft 8. Street Fighter II 9. Star Wars: TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM 10. Super Metroid
11. Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 12. X-COM: UFO Defense 13. Chrono Trigger 14. Rome: Total War 15. Super Mario Kart
16. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 17. Star Control 2 18. ICO 19. Metal Gear Solid 20. Ms. Pac Man
21. Deus Ex 22. Half-Life 23. Super Mario Bros. 3 24. Tecmo Super Bowl 25. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
26. Final Fantasy II (IV) 27. Burnout 3: Takedown 28. Half-Life 2 29. GoldenEye 7 30. Halo
31. SimCity 2000 32. Resident Evil 4 33. God of War 34. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 35. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
36. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 37. Wave Race 64 38. Madden NFL 2004 39. DOOM 40. Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution
41. System Shock 2 42. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec 43. Soul Calibur 44. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island 45. Battlefield 1942
46. Super Mario World 47. NHL 94 48. The Secret of Mana 49. Grim Fandango 50. Wing Comander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi
51. Grand Theft Auto III 52. Metroid Prime 53. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings 54. Panzer Dragoon Saga 55. Fallout
56. Final Fantasy III (VI) 57. Mike Tyson's Punchout! 58. Super Smash Bros. Melee 59. Bionic Commando 60. Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
61. Sam & Max Hit the Road 62. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time 63. Sonic the Hedgehog 64. Advance Wars 65. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat
66. Homeworld 67. Rayman 2: The Great Escape 68. Starsiege: Tribes 69. Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs 70. Pokemon Red/Blue
71. Half-Life: Counter-Strike 72. Galaga 73. Return Fire 74. Syndicate 75. Crimson Skies
76. Tetris Attack 77. Archon: The Light and The Dark 78. Star Wars 79. Shining Force II 80. Baseball Stars
81. Freedom Force 82. Gunstar Heroes 83. Contra 84. Ultima VII: The Black Gate 85. Prince of Persia
86. Final Fantasy X 87. Thief II: The Metal Age 88. Final Fantasy VII 89. Alone in the Dark 90. Master of Orion
91. Virtua Tennis 92. Dragon Warrior 93. Quake II 94. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 95. Herzog Zwei
96. Mafia 97. F-Zero 98. BattleToads 99. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss 100. River City Ransom
Gross revenue or number of units sold are a few of the ways that you could try to measure the goodness/popularity/influence of a game. You might also find the inflation adjusted gross revenue. Or divide the gross revenue by the revenue of the industry as a whole. Or divide the number of units sold by the estimated consumer base.
My point is that there are numerous ways to objectively determine goodness/popularity/influence of a game, but most of them rely on finding hard to find data. The games industry is not as open (or flamboyent) about game grosses as the movie industry.
Of course you could do as suggested and create a IMDB-like games database and have people vote. Of course, there might be vote stuffing like I found on a message board where John Wayne fans conspired to stuff his movie The Searchers to the top of IMDB. (I like his films too but come on, don't cheat).
Another way with such a database to determine the historical influence of a game would be by adding a section (probably moderator approved) where you could submit which games directly influence a given game. Then you could analyze the database as a whole and find the most influential games. However, some influence might be over or understated by such a system. For example would DOOM be the most influential game because nearly all FPSs have borrowed from it, and PONG be nearly influence-less because very few games actually borrowed from the gameplay (although it definitely inspired hords of people in from the 70's to early 80's to risk time and money to get a must-have arcade machine, or console game- yes I admit that it was only must-have at the time because there was nothing else). Such a system is currently being developed by academics to weight the influence of their papers. Somewhat easier for them because they already have to include references.
Furthermore the simplest and perhaps most accurate way to determine the most popular video games would be to simply conduct a statistically sound phone poll and ask people to name all the video games that they know off the top of their heads. Maybe you're wonderding why I would spend so much time writing about objectivity etc. Well I just read Freakonomics and it's a great book to read if you like thinking about the world.
My ISP doesn't support a Telnet client. *sob*
Help me, web-based app. You're my only hope.
Laser tag seems to have a higher cost of adoption and despite there being a built in scoring system, I've heard that sometimes its not so easy to get a direct hit.
For SuperSoakers, however, you can easily tell when someone has been shot. By the damp and dripping areas of their t-shirts. Unfortunately, there is still difficulty in determining a winner in a team-match.
One idea for a solution is this: after a concluding a team-match a team could strip their t-shirts, hand them to the other team, and wring the loose water into buckets. Whichever team has the least, amount of water wins. And by having the other team wring them out, they have an incentive to wring every last drop. But you would want the other team to watch so that they aren't adding extra water.
Of course if you wanted to make things really complicated you could do SuperSoaker Counterstrike and have a bunch of referees keep track of which body parts get hit and how often, but that's overkill methinks. Oh and if you are as worried about eyes as the Gamerdads are just use sunglasses.
Oh and Fantastic 4 is riddled with flaws, but the Thing costume was not a major one in comparison to the rest of the movie. A juvenile plot, simplistic characters, and not-so-intense action segments for an action movie did this movie in. Oh and Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch CGI were sometimes reflecting mid-1990's quality.
Not to turn this into a movie debate, but I saw Fantastic 4 and The Thing was actually the best character in the movie. And he also looked more realistic (once you add rock sound effects) than any other of the 4 other than Invisible Girl, who obviously didn't have to look real.
For the next 10 or so years CGI elements will look bad when used improperly alongside live action. To make the CGI/live action composite scenes look believable, the movie makers need 2 things attention to detail (where needed) and artistic talent. In LOTR many of the long shots for larger battle sequences simply imployed blurred hordes of orcs and men as they charged or were knock around, which is fine. But when they had to develop the pivotal character Gollum, they definitely spent some time in making it look right.
A little art also goes a long way. A goofy-looking CGI character will probably always look fake. But by just putting the CGI element in a dark scene or making it shoot by real fast, you can get something to look real for half the effort/money. Also any odd looking human animations are dead giveaways.
Why not just accomodate the Republican's desires to kill people and improve education at the same time. Just ELIMINATE the bottom 10th percentile for each year in high school. That would be a pretty strong incentive. Or we could just genetically engineer kids to be smarter and more motivated. We have the technology. A little money spent up front would save bundles in education costs. Lots of savants go through K-12 in a few years.
I'm in the same boat.
I bet teachers would be much more motivated if their good teaching for each day was rewarded by a line of coke.
Then how do we keep nerds from becoming weak and easy targets?
Policy-wise schools should define nerds as anyone who acheives greater than a 3.2 GPA in college-prep classes and an uber-nerd as one with greater than a 3.6 GPA.
Then they can grant benefits to them such as the latest cool clothes, cell phones, and even allow them to have access to steroids. Who, then, will try to pick on the math nerd who can bench press 300 lbs and has a tendency for roid rage? Heck, why not subsidize the construction of battle mechs for the uber-nerds? Those who make fun of honor students result in their being nothing more than a pile of goo at the bottom of a giant mechanized footprint on the quad.
Maybe he just means that there are a lot of people in those countries that down own your US typical plot of suburban land and cottage. I know that a lot of people in Japan and China have apartments. I don't know if they rent. I know there is a substantial population of squatters in Philippines suburbs. Yes, it's still difficult to imagine any of the lower class of any of these countries playing Second Life for anything other than financial reasons.
Assumming that Google has enough cash on hand and the ultra-loyal big wigs (aka Gates, Ballmer, etc.) don't have a large enough stake, why couldn't Google buy Microsoft out and transform the company using their "don't be evil" company slogan. I know Slashdot isn't much for biblical quotes but in this context if Microsoft would "shall beat their swords into plowshares" I think I could start feeling good about corporate America again.
...
Imagine all the people
using applications that work
under both Linux and Open Windows.
You may say I'm a dreamer
What the heck is going on... I can do anything thanks to zombo.com. !!!!
Ooohhh the flashing lights and hypnotic voice.
I am a resident of California, and honestly I feel a little bad when I buy something on the internet that I could have purchased at a retail outlet. This is because I want to do my part to help the state out of its current financial crisis, and sales tax is one of the little ways that I can do this. In database terms 4500+ different ways to calculate taxes in the US isn't really that many. How many retailers, products, and customers does Amazon already keep track of? Billions?! At this point of internet history, most online stores can figure out how to work with the governments to get them the proper sales tax revenues. The only online stores that would go out of business would be ones that rely soley upon the absence of taxes to get customers. Amazon, etc. rely on their super wide selection of products. I agree with the parent post that we should end the subsidizing of online businesses by allowing them to avoid collecting sales taxes. Further, location of the purchasers should determine what entity would get the tax - otherwise every online retailer would just move their headquarters to Oregon. Yes, state and local governments should work together so there is a relatively simple system of collection and enforcement (at least on the big online stores).
I think Nexuis is supposed to mean "Next you is" as in Next to die. Anyway, just by comparing screenshots I would have to say that Nexuis seems more asthetically pleasing than Cube. Maybe its that the characters seem less ugly artistically.
The uncanny valley is bogus. It was research done for robot appearances that culminated in very life-like manequins. Yes, with better graphics poorly designed models, textures, and lighting can combine to make one scarey looking face. However, I don't think this "uncanny valley" is as uncrossable with todays graphics as is purported.
When I played Half-Life 2 on my medium-low end PC, the human characters were pretty dang believable at times. Of course Valve paid great attention to facial expressions, just like the Golum character played by Andy Serkis in LotR. This contrasts with the characters in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (those models could only smile with their lips and scowl with their eyebrows - they didn't utilize the entire face in a natural manner).
With films on the big screen, we usually spot out CGI elements, but when the entire film is CGI we just take it all in (much more immersive).
For games to deal with sex in a mature way, game developers need to realize that less is more. If you show everything it is no longer sexy, only stimulating. It stops being eroticism, and becomes porn. There is a reason that today's most artsy, cutting edge directors aren't doing porn films. There is a reason that Victoria's Secret keeps making money when you can get naked for free!
I am surprised by how many comments were basically suggesting "make Porn Game 346." There are plenty of those in Japan. I think the only way they could deal with sex in a mature way would be either to just use cutscenes that portray it in a artistic way. Or make a minigame out of it without showing everything. I haven't seen that part of God of War, but I am sure there are numerous tasteful ways of some kind of minigame that wouldn't deaden the emotional response. No matter how sex is portrayed it would have to be done in such a way that your girlfriend could be in the room and she would think it was romantic.
dang, I forgot to Preview and add "br"
Here is a list of games that I compiled from a previous and very exaustive slashdot discussion thought were educational. I haven't played most of them, so some may have more educational merit than others. Sim City Sim Ant* Sim Tower Sim Farm Sim Earth** Sim Safari The Incredible Machine Contraptions Chromatron (puzzle) Enigmo [pangeasoft.net]* Zoo Tycoon Roller Coaster Tycoon Transport Tycoon w/ [ttdpatch.net]** Railroad Tycoon Test Drive Celestia [shatters.net]* Noctis [anywherebb.com] Orbit [head-crash.com]* Orbiter [ucl.ac.uk]** FlightGear [flightgear.org]* Also [tucows.com] and [freshmeat.net] Sobokan Oregon Trail Core Wars (robot program) Mindrover (robot program) Bridge Builder/Pontifex or Bridge Construction Set** Creatures Civilization 3** Tranquility Polygon Worlds [polygonworlds.com] Planet's Orbits [alcyone.de] Partiview [haydenplanetarium.org] Tuxtype [sourceforge.net] Droid Battles [bluefire.nu] MahJong [stevens-bradfield.com] Settlers of Catan [sourceforge.net] [settlers3d.net] JTEG [sourceforge.net] Tetrinet [tetrinet.org] Armagetron [sourceforge.net] Search and Rescue [twu.net] Astrobattle [astrobattle.com] Tower Toppler [sourceforge.net] MyLink [as-netz.de] Airstrike [icculus.org] XRick [bigorno.net] Vegastrike [sourceforge.net] Stoned [cute-ninjas.com] (curling simulation) CarWorld [sourceforge.net] Cannon Smash [sourceforge.net] (virtual Table tennis) Sentry [eicart.free.fr] Noiz2sa [asahi-net.or.jp] rRootage [asahi-net.or.jp] PowerManga [linux.tlk.fr] Spheres of Chaos [streamerp2p.com] Warblade [warblade.as] Epiar [epiar.net] Nethack [nethack.org]** Wall Street Raider WordWars [gamethoughts.com] West Point Bridge Design [usma.edu] Life & Death II: The Brain [mobygames.com] Live For Speed [liveforspeed.net]* Trucks [jet.ro] Alice [alice.org] Physicus [viva-media.com]** Chemicus Frozen Bubble (old C64 titles) Raft Away River (old C64 titles) Sheepdog Trails (old C64 titles) Rocky's Boots (old C64 titles) Goldfields (old C64 titles) The Journey to Wild Divine CyberLearning Technology (for ADD) [www.selfesteemgames.mcgill.ca/] Ben's Game [www.makewish.org/ben/] FloodRanger** Real Lives 2004** Superpower 2** Making History [muzzylane.com]** Crusader Kings [paradox.com]** Victoria [paradox.com] Europa Universalis 2 [paradox.com]** Hearts of Iron 2 [paradox.com]** Pirates (2004)** Colonization* Combat Mission (all 3) [battlefront.com]** Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim** America's Army** Airborne Assault: Highway to the Reich** Total War (all 3)**
I break stuff in real life all the time. It's really cool!
Car breaks down - Dose it with gasoline and send it pinballing down a cliff with flames dancing to the sweet night music of destruction. Bump my head on a my basements low doorway - let the sledgehammer rain down wood splinters and chunks of drywall until I have enough headroom. Gumball machine steals my quarter - crowbar it into flying shards of glass and hundreds of colorful bouncing gumballs.
I'm telling you there's no limit to the number of life's problems that can be solved by breaking stuff. I already have all the particle effects, realistic physics, and CD quality audio I'll ever need.
I can't wait until the next, next Zelda comes out for the Revolution. Maybe they will have an even more adult Link, like 80 something. Of course he'd still be awesome and kicking butt (ala Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns).
They wouldn't have to give him walkers for weapons or Viagra for health potions though. They'd just make him older and wiser, and instead of having to prove himself to older people, he'd just have to kick the snot out of young wippersnappers that thought he was over the hill. Over the course of the game he would keep getting more and more permanent injuries. Think dentures, magical hip replacement, pacemakers, etc. Some levels would even randomize locations ever once and a while to simulate senility. And then, once the death blow to Gannon was delivered, he would die of a heart attack. Thus leaving Zelda a substantial life-insurance policy to cash in.
That would definitely bring a whole new demographic to Nintendo!
I haven't played FF games since FFII (US) and FFA for the GB (the Zelda clone), but my brother has played most of the newer ones, and I have done my fair share of reading from varied web sources on them.
The last RPG that I played to completion, and I would have to say the RPG that I enjoyed the most was Fallout on the PC. Mainly because of its insane amount of dialogue options coupled with its non-linear options of befriending/fighting/etc that all combine to affect your karma rating. This system has since been co-opted Knights of the Old Republic.
Finally, I get to my point which is that if S-E doesn't want to mess with a good thing then fine. But if they want to innovate they can look around to other games (RPG or not). Of course their lies the possibility that FF fans will reject whatever change they do make.
As for myself, I think the only way I would end up playing a FF game is if EITHER the game was just amazingly innovative, dubbed the best RPG of all time by Gamespot, had a 15 hour express version under the options, OR the game was renamed Grand Theft Chocobo.
Gamespot's coverage of the crap section of E3 was hilarious. Mainly slightly blurry digital photographs with milk-through-nose-spewingly funny captions below them. Either this is really funny or I am really tired.
Parents need to understand that RPGs DO teach children real world skills.
Kids that play RPGs understand intuitively that winnning the Lotto is nigh impossible because you would have to roll 1d4 and 7d10 and have them all turn out as 1's.
Kids that play RPGs are better prepared for the workforce because they know what it is like to work together as a team to reach a goal, only to have that goal squashed due to the GM's (aka boss') preconceived notion on how the adventure (aka project) should turn out.
And finally, kids that play RPGs know that you should never open a door, package, or anything else for that matter without first checking for traps.
Nintendo itself has stated that what it plans to use on Revolution isn't all that unique, only that it has never been applied to videogames. Taking that into account, plus recent patents filed by Nintendo, and it doesn't sound all that far fetched, argues Burgess.
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The "argues" implies speculation. Furthermore, I say it is bogus because even if Nintendo doesn't want to remember Virtual Boy, certainly they remember 3-D World Runner for the NES.
http://www.gamespot.com/nes/action/3dbattlesofwor
I think it came with glasses. And although the 3-D mode wasn't top notch, it was 3-D. You could also turn the 3-D mode off. Have fun by running around a planet in four directions (NSEW) fighting impressive sprite dragons (although they didn't look like real dragons they did look quasi 3D).