It's about patents... remember Stallman told us about patenting book ideas? Actually I'm surprised, I thought it'd be 10 or 20 years before his predictions would come true...
I remember an old c64 game, "Pogo Joe". It had this guy on a pogo stick that had to step on different squares to change their colors. Meanwhile, he had to run away from these monsters or you would lose a life. But you could crush the monsters' eggs before they hatched. All of this while you wer hearing a really funny (or fun) melody.
So, was it a puzzle game? Yes. Was it a platform game? Well, kinda, you had this guy jumping on platforms. I guess it could be applied. And you had to run away from enemies, too. Was it fun? WAY YES! I remember spending hours playing this game.
Another fun game was Lemmings, too bad psygnosis doesn't release sequels anymore, and sues cloners out of existence.
In contrast, today's games have nearly zero replay value, and most of the time you spend is trying to get to one zone from the other while battling endless monsters: Castlevania, Silent Hill (to an extent), Final Fantasy, all apply, and most of the time the areas are plain corridors (or streets / plains) with no variety between them. Forget a puzzle element and you spend useless time trying to find where the puzzle element is than actually figuring out the puzzle. This was called the "metroid syndrome". Fortunately, metroid did have difficult areas to go thru, you had to jump, dodge, avoid lava streams, hang onto ledges... it was fun. It wasn't just running around and hitting x or o whenever you encountered a monster. And then came the speed-run challenge with SuperMetroid, this is a real innovation, get 100% items under 3 hours by using secret techniques. w00t:)
But in today's games, remove the moving time from one area to another, and your hours of play are disminished a lot. To think we spend about $60 on EACH of these games.
Perhaps a flaw has been the "pseudo-3D maps" in games like Castlevania. Gone are the old days of 2D platformers. But what do we have instead? Top-down runners! It's *NOT* 3D! They replaced x and z with x and y. Sure, it looks 3D in the screen, with all those nice renderings and everything, but a 2D map can describe a level perfectly, even when some areas are "above" others. (An exception to this is the Prince of Persia series, it is a true 3D game, but the levels are not many or as long as one would wish).
So, what happened to the creativity of game designers?:( It seems they want to try new formulas (3D renderer + 2D top-down maps = profit!!), but bury their old formulas so nobody can use them anymore. I want my lemmings with level editor!:(
here in mexico, a tapped phone conversation was published to a TV station. The conversation was between a governor and a man charged with pedophilia. In the conversation they agreed to punish the journalist who published facts about the pedophile. They wanted to jail her and have her raped there.
The federal government has asked for an investigation about acts of corruption and abuse of power by this governor... but also one about phone tapping:-/
If you see this post, You'll notice some differences:
* Sempron is AMD, while Celeron is (eew) Intel. * Dell doesn't include an Onboard GeForce 6100, does it? * Dell sells you a CD-RW, not DVD+RW. DVD drives are a necessity today. * XP Home is practically a fraud. I'd go for XP Pro instead.
Just as it's common for people to use modchips in their game consoles, it'll be as common to use modchips in HD-DVD players.
Anyway, will this thing be able to thwart piracy? I don't think so, this is just another way to get more money, like the region codes system.
Besides, I've had experience with divx video, 640x480 is a very good resolution, i've played some divx on my 21" TV. And there's the good ol' 512x384 which is acceptable.
Why think that a resolution of 900 pixels wide is bad?
Let me tell you something i've seen in my city. Pirated VCD's to play cheap movies in your house, the chinese players are around $30, if not cheaper. Yes, at 320x200 they look crappy. But they sell. If common people feel fine with VCD resolution, do you think they'll say "oh crap" when they realize their pirated movies can "only" display at 900 pixels wide? Give me a break.
Ultra-high resolution movies are only for "original owners" (read-as: suckers) and fan-pirates. And fan-pirates do value resolution, and they're very persistent. Don't think a pitiful hardware limitation will make them give up.
In other words, is the high-resolution protection necessary? No. Effective? No. It's just another excuse to sell more hardware. Welcome to America.
the electoral system needs to be rewritten ASAP. Otherwise, your so-called democracy is nothing but a mask, and you're living in a bipartisan dictatorship.
Everytime someone talks about the US and how they support democracy, it makes me laugh.
You can avoid soreness in your thumbs the same way you avoid soreness everywhere else: stretch your muscles (try shadow thumb wrestling), repetition...
You obviously don't know what "repetitive strain injury" is, right?
One thing is muscle fatigue due to exercise, a VERY DIFFERENT THING is when your joints are about to implode* because you've DAMAGED them.
* - In a metaphorical sense
The point with SMS is that the phone buttons are designed NOT to be pressed easily (otherwise you might end up calling long distance because you accidentally pushed them), and the excessive and repetitive pushing of the keys leads to injury.
Compare with the much softer touch of a computer keyboard. People type everyday, and they don't get sore thumbs and fingers.
They can't win: if they include Windows Media Player with their OS they get sued, if they don't include it they get hundreds of thousands of complaints from users and even more Microsoft bashing than before. If they include Active Directory with their OS they get sued, if the don't include it they get thousands of complaints from administrators and even more Microsoft bashing than before. The list goes on and on.
Well, if they HADN'T INCLUDED all those nice add-ons in the beginning, NO ONE would have complained nor sued. Why? Because they built A GIGANTIC user base over those bundles. Precisely the amount of people's complaints will demonstrate how much they have cheated.
Brion, Tuesday aug 16th, 2005 @ 3:29 AM
ok i have a proposition for the horde, let us kill Korrak while you sit and watch. and well let you get all the honor youll ever want=}. no? ok well it shall be a great battle then, hope to see everyone there!
Fayda, Tuesday aug 16th, 2005 @ 8:44 AM
((OOC))
Pardon me for hijacking the thread, here..
But, Brion - if you don't want your mother to know you were up and on the computer at 3:29 in the morning - DON'T post on a forum that she reads.
Heh, that reminds me of a typical parody-movie scene a-la Airplane..
"Well yes, the house has a tiny little problem with pests..." (stampede of rats runs on the background) "And a little problem with the electrical installation..." (Suddenly an electric cable in the wall catches fire) "But overall, the house is fine" (the roof falls down)
Blecch. Supermodels are all skin and bone. Now figure skaters, on the other hand...;)
Couch potatoes have much more energy-rich fat in their bodies. And even those don't have enough fat compared to a sea lion. This is why white sharks don't like to eat humans.
Slashdot Mirror
Its funny that slashdot is filled with continual microsoft bashers and people that keep bashing...
:)
They're called "trolls". By the way, welcome
It's about patents... remember Stallman told us about patenting book ideas? Actually I'm surprised, I thought it'd be 10 or 20 years before his predictions would come true...
I remember an old c64 game, "Pogo Joe". It had this guy on a pogo stick that had to step on different squares to change their colors. Meanwhile, he had to run away from these monsters or you would lose a life. But you could crush the monsters' eggs before they hatched.
:)
:( :(
All of this while you wer hearing a really funny (or fun) melody.
So, was it a puzzle game? Yes.
Was it a platform game? Well, kinda, you had this guy jumping on platforms. I guess it could be applied. And you had to run away from enemies, too.
Was it fun? WAY YES! I remember spending hours playing this game.
Another fun game was Lemmings, too bad psygnosis doesn't release sequels anymore, and sues cloners out of existence.
In contrast, today's games have nearly zero replay value, and most of the time you spend is trying to get to one zone from the other while battling endless monsters: Castlevania, Silent Hill (to an extent), Final Fantasy, all apply, and most of the time the areas are plain corridors (or streets / plains) with no variety between them. Forget a puzzle element and you spend useless time trying to find where the puzzle element is than actually figuring out the puzzle. This was called the "metroid syndrome". Fortunately, metroid did have difficult areas to go thru, you had to jump, dodge, avoid lava streams, hang onto ledges... it was fun. It wasn't just running around and hitting x or o whenever you encountered a monster. And then came the speed-run challenge with SuperMetroid, this is a real innovation, get 100% items under 3 hours by using secret techniques. w00t
But in today's games, remove the moving time from one area to another, and your hours of play are disminished a lot. To think we spend about $60 on EACH of these games.
Perhaps a flaw has been the "pseudo-3D maps" in games like Castlevania. Gone are the old days of 2D platformers. But what do we have instead? Top-down runners! It's *NOT* 3D! They replaced x and z with x and y. Sure, it looks 3D in the screen, with all those nice renderings and everything, but a 2D map can describe a level perfectly, even when some areas are "above" others. (An exception to this is the Prince of Persia series, it is a true 3D game, but the levels are not many or as long as one would wish).
So, what happened to the creativity of game designers?
It seems they want to try new formulas (3D renderer + 2D top-down maps = profit!!), but bury their old formulas so nobody can use them anymore. I want my lemmings with level editor!
6 different distros, that's the spirit! Glad to see Microsoft is ACTUALLY trying to compete with Linux! :)
here in mexico, a tapped phone conversation was published to a TV station. The conversation was between a governor and a man charged with pedophilia. In the conversation they agreed to punish the journalist who published facts about the pedophile. They wanted to jail her and have her raped there.
:-/
The federal government has asked for an investigation about acts of corruption and abuse of power by this governor... but also one about phone tapping
those who skip the commercials, get as punishment, an interactive listing of KFC's secret recipe! (eew)
If you see this post, You'll notice some differences:
* Sempron is AMD, while Celeron is (eew) Intel.
* Dell doesn't include an Onboard GeForce 6100, does it?
* Dell sells you a CD-RW, not DVD+RW. DVD drives are a necessity today.
* XP Home is practically a fraud. I'd go for XP Pro instead.
Just as it's common for people to use modchips in their game consoles, it'll be as common to use modchips in HD-DVD players.
Anyway, will this thing be able to thwart piracy? I don't think so, this is just another way to get more money, like the region codes system.
Besides, I've had experience with divx video, 640x480 is a very good resolution, i've played some divx on my 21" TV. And there's the good ol' 512x384 which is acceptable.
Why think that a resolution of 900 pixels wide is bad?
Let me tell you something i've seen in my city. Pirated VCD's to play cheap movies in your house, the chinese players are around $30, if not cheaper. Yes, at 320x200 they look crappy. But they sell. If common people feel fine with VCD resolution, do you think they'll say "oh crap" when they realize their pirated movies can "only" display at 900 pixels wide? Give me a break.
Ultra-high resolution movies are only for "original owners" (read-as: suckers) and fan-pirates. And fan-pirates do value resolution, and they're very persistent. Don't think a pitiful hardware limitation will make them give up.
In other words, is the high-resolution protection necessary? No. Effective? No. It's just another excuse to sell more hardware. Welcome to America.
the electoral system needs to be rewritten ASAP. Otherwise, your so-called democracy is nothing but a mask, and you're living in a bipartisan dictatorship.
Everytime someone talks about the US and how they support democracy, it makes me laugh.
You can avoid soreness in your thumbs the same way you avoid soreness everywhere else: stretch your muscles (try shadow thumb wrestling), repetition...
You obviously don't know what "repetitive strain injury" is, right?
One thing is muscle fatigue due to exercise, a VERY DIFFERENT THING is when your joints are about to implode* because you've DAMAGED them.
* - In a metaphorical sense
The point with SMS is that the phone buttons are designed NOT to be pressed easily (otherwise you might end up calling long distance because you accidentally pushed them), and the excessive and repetitive pushing of the keys leads to injury.
Compare with the much softer touch of a computer keyboard. People type everyday, and they don't get sore thumbs and fingers.
I don't really understand what Woz means by saying that her hopes intel becomes more like Apple.
:P
Easy! Because having a human (clone or not) is infinite times better than having a borg!
because this european complaint addresses the lack of documentation for Office formats.
About friggin' time, I'd say.
The new-generation consoles look best when plugged into high-definition TV sets
Can't they just add a friggin' VGA connector to them? Sheesh.
They can't win: if they include Windows Media Player with their OS they get sued, if they don't include it they get hundreds of thousands of complaints from users and even more Microsoft bashing than before. If they include Active Directory with their OS they get sued, if the don't include it they get thousands of complaints from administrators and even more Microsoft bashing than before. The list goes on and on.
Well, if they HADN'T INCLUDED all those nice add-ons in the beginning, NO ONE would have complained nor sued. Why? Because they built A GIGANTIC user base over those bundles. Precisely the amount of people's complaints will demonstrate how much they have cheated.
the human race :(
I wouldn't mind if some of the "made for the Japanese market only" notebooks and appliances became available used in the US.
Heh, we've been getting old US articles in Mexico for decades. Welcome to the club.
I agree, families should LIVE together. Oh, wait this is the U.S.... nevermind. :(
but I've seen better FlashMedia done by teens on Spring Break ...
Sorry, but spring breakers' party videos don't count.
Only one game above 8 and it didn't interest me :-/
"Schare also admits problems with ActiveX"
Heh, that reminds me of a typical parody-movie scene a-la Airplane..
"Well yes, the house has a tiny little problem with pests..."
(stampede of rats runs on the background)
"And a little problem with the electrical installation..."
(Suddenly an electric cable in the wall catches fire)
"But overall, the house is fine"
(the roof falls down)
Blecch. Supermodels are all skin and bone. Now figure skaters, on the other hand... ;)
Couch potatoes have much more energy-rich fat in their bodies. And even those don't have enough fat compared to a sea lion. This is why white sharks don't like to eat humans.
they just add a couple of magnets for extra power source. Magnet =~ extra battery.
Of course, the magnets will eventually run out...
it makes sense.
I want artists to get paid, but I like free downloads
I want artists to get paid, but I like very cheap downloads. I just don't like the RIAA to get in the middle, thank you.
Just be careful guys, I'm at work and i had to go to the restrooms to laugh properly. DONT LOOK AT THE PIC if you're at the job!