Well, there's a difference between a recurring main character in a game series and a video game mascot. I think a character achieves "mascot" status when they become synonymous with a console or company. I mean, Mario *is* Nintendo, Link *is* Nintendo, Sonic *is* (well, *was*) Sega. Also, I think mascots should be recognizeable to people who know nothing about gaming. My mom knows Mario, but I don't think she'd have a clue who Gordon Freeman is. Those are just my personal criteria for "mascots" as opposed to just another game character, no matter how kick-ass they may be.
Actually the term "half-life" comes from the amount of time it takes radioactive materials to decay by half. See the Wikipedia article for more information. </PedanticDolt>
I kind of wondered that too. Seems like a relatively easy question to miss for someone who won around $2.5 million on Jeopardy... Sure FedEx may get busy around the holidays, but they're doing stuff the rest of the year too. Not many taxes to do at H&R Block most of the year...
But your brain would have had to come up with that rationalization before answering instead of, if you really weren't cheating on her, just replying with a 100% truthful "No."
The criminal has to win every time. The citizen only has to win once.
That's kind of a screwy, criminal-centric way of looking at it... A citizen has to win every time they get their house broken into. They may shoot a criminal dead one time, but then get shot in the head by the next criminal to break into their place. I'd much rather live in a place where the entire "whoever-shoots-whomever-else-first-wins" discussion is moot...
I've been miffed at Vivendi for a few years now... ever since they started buying up and dismantling and/or screwing all the companies I dreamed of working at as I was growing up (see Sierra, see Interplay, see Blizzard, etc etc...) Vivendi is one of the largest "publishing" companies in the world (they recently bought Universal and NBC), and they seem to think that publishing games is just like publishing books or TV shows or whatever the hell else it is they do. I think they just really don't care about games as much as their other branches. Now that they're publishing some higher profile games, the flaws in their system are showing. I dunno. That's just the way I have seen it.
First off, not everyone from rural America is a "moran." I mean, you're probably not from rural America, but obviously a "moran," right?
Besides that, you're putting the cart before the horse. Companies don't go where people with skills are, people with skills go where the companies are. Gaming companies won't have any problem "highering" people, no matter where they're based.
Yeah, my dad had a small bottle of it. I thought it was pretty cool, so I swiped it for show-and-tell one day in the first grade. My teacher freaked out and called my parents. But I recently got some of my own that I play with, and I hope to someday hand the toxic substance to my kids for their enjoyment.
Okay, okay, I'll bite: What *is* GMail? An elaborate trojan horse because I'm shown ads on the sidebar, thereby spamming me while I'm under the naive delusion that my spam is being filtered (quite well, too!) I can send e-mail with it, I can get e-mail with it, I don't get spam. I'm guess any argument that it's not an e-mail service is probably just semantics...
Unless I'm mistaken, IE is pre-installed and free when Windows is pre-installed and free. Which is never... IE may be pre-installed with Windows, but you're shelling out some bucks for the OS on a new machine.
Regardless, I see your point about Mozilla not making money on a free browser.
Thing is, don't we have enough on our plate without this? I mean, unless "the terrorists" or the scattered Iraqi militants suddenly got some technology more advanced than RPG launchers and Jeeps, why do we need this right now? We ain't exactly dealing with SPECTRE here, folks, and unless we're planning on attacking China sometime in the next four years, we shouldn't ever need this technology. Spend money on our current messes, please, or on some friggin' schools. These are blasphemous, liberal ideas, I know, sorry...
You wouldn't switch at all if you want to play games . That's kind of the point. Using a PC because you like to play games isn't an "excuse" not to switch, it's just a question of priorities. If you want to play games, you get a PC. That doesn't mean the person is a mindless zombie to Microsoft, it just means they want to play games.
I immediately thought of the applications for games. Say you throw around a stack of papers to befuddle your opponents. I can see the headlines now... "Doom 4: Now with realistic falling paper motion!!"
I agree. Oregon Trail is the ubiquitous example of educational games. But there were also the Math Munchers (and Spelling and Super etc...) games that were educational. I learned how to do fractions when I was six years old from a game on my Atari XE called Fraction Fever. In fourth grade I remember a game that taught Greek mythology. You had to answer trivia questions and move up Mount Olympus. And, hell, I learned to type playing old Sierra adventure games (most notably Leisure Suit Larry 2, but I wouldn't recommend that in a classroom...)! I'm currently at Purdue University, were a lot of research is going on into the educational value of games. A group of students here is making a FPS that teaches chemistry (not quite sure how _that_ one works, actually...) So, I think games can definitely be used to educate, and it's a fairly unexplored, or at least underdeveloped, market.
I'm waiting for all the add-ons to be bundled with the game into Half-Life 2: Gold Edition and that to go gold. ("Gold" doesn't even look like a word anymore...)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there's a difference between a recurring main character in a game series and a video game mascot. I think a character achieves "mascot" status when they become synonymous with a console or company. I mean, Mario *is* Nintendo, Link *is* Nintendo, Sonic *is* (well, *was*) Sega. Also, I think mascots should be recognizeable to people who know nothing about gaming. My mom knows Mario, but I don't think she'd have a clue who Gordon Freeman is. Those are just my personal criteria for "mascots" as opposed to just another game character, no matter how kick-ass they may be.
Actually the term "half-life" comes from the amount of time it takes radioactive materials to decay by half. See the Wikipedia article for more information. </PedanticDolt>
:-)
Seriously, though, I know what you mean.
I kind of wondered that too. Seems like a relatively easy question to miss for someone who won around $2.5 million on Jeopardy... Sure FedEx may get busy around the holidays, but they're doing stuff the rest of the year too. Not many taxes to do at H&R Block most of the year...
But your brain would have had to come up with that rationalization before answering instead of, if you really weren't cheating on her, just replying with a 100% truthful "No."
The criminal has to win every time. The citizen only has to win once.
That's kind of a screwy, criminal-centric way of looking at it... A citizen has to win every time they get their house broken into. They may shoot a criminal dead one time, but then get shot in the head by the next criminal to break into their place. I'd much rather live in a place where the entire "whoever-shoots-whomever-else-first-wins" discussion is moot...
"The Giant Icy Rocks" would be a great band name...
I've been miffed at Vivendi for a few years now... ever since they started buying up and dismantling and/or screwing all the companies I dreamed of working at as I was growing up (see Sierra, see Interplay, see Blizzard, etc etc...) Vivendi is one of the largest "publishing" companies in the world (they recently bought Universal and NBC), and they seem to think that publishing games is just like publishing books or TV shows or whatever the hell else it is they do. I think they just really don't care about games as much as their other branches. Now that they're publishing some higher profile games, the flaws in their system are showing. I dunno. That's just the way I have seen it.
Soylent Tuna is made of dolphins!! DOLPHINS I tell you!!
Silence of the Lambs, anyone?
First off, not everyone from rural America is a "moran." I mean, you're probably not from rural America, but obviously a "moran," right?
Besides that, you're putting the cart before the horse. Companies don't go where people with skills are, people with skills go where the companies are. Gaming companies won't have any problem "highering" people, no matter where they're based.
Ah, well, what do I know. I'm from Indiana and can't tell people wtf a "Hoosier" is...
No, actually it is "hooah" in the Army. It was originally short for "Heard, Understood and Acknowledged."
That hilariously disturbing. It was Teddy Ruxpin, BTW. They were a sure-fire way to be the coolest kid in kindergarten when I was growing up.
Yeah, my dad had a small bottle of it. I thought it was pretty cool, so I swiped it for show-and-tell one day in the first grade. My teacher freaked out and called my parents. But I recently got some of my own that I play with, and I hope to someday hand the toxic substance to my kids for their enjoyment.
Why the hell were you searching for "Pikachuman?" I'm hoping that's just your handle on some forum and you weren't looking for some "Pika-porn..."
"Xanga" is "Tolkien" in Japanese. ... Or maybe not, I don't know...
Okay, okay, I'll bite: What *is* GMail? An elaborate trojan horse because I'm shown ads on the sidebar, thereby spamming me while I'm under the naive delusion that my spam is being filtered (quite well, too!) I can send e-mail with it, I can get e-mail with it, I don't get spam. I'm guess any argument that it's not an e-mail service is probably just semantics...
Unless I'm mistaken, IE is pre-installed and free when Windows is pre-installed and free. Which is never... IE may be pre-installed with Windows, but you're shelling out some bucks for the OS on a new machine. Regardless, I see your point about Mozilla not making money on a free browser.
Thing is, don't we have enough on our plate without this? I mean, unless "the terrorists" or the scattered Iraqi militants suddenly got some technology more advanced than RPG launchers and Jeeps, why do we need this right now? We ain't exactly dealing with SPECTRE here, folks, and unless we're planning on attacking China sometime in the next four years, we shouldn't ever need this technology. Spend money on our current messes, please, or on some friggin' schools. These are blasphemous, liberal ideas, I know, sorry...
You wouldn't switch at all if you want to play games . That's kind of the point. Using a PC because you like to play games isn't an "excuse" not to switch, it's just a question of priorities. If you want to play games, you get a PC. That doesn't mean the person is a mindless zombie to Microsoft, it just means they want to play games.
I immediately thought of the applications for games. Say you throw around a stack of papers to befuddle your opponents. I can see the headlines now... "Doom 4: Now with realistic falling paper motion!!"
I agree. Oregon Trail is the ubiquitous example of educational games. But there were also the Math Munchers (and Spelling and Super etc...) games that were educational. I learned how to do fractions when I was six years old from a game on my Atari XE called Fraction Fever. In fourth grade I remember a game that taught Greek mythology. You had to answer trivia questions and move up Mount Olympus. And, hell, I learned to type playing old Sierra adventure games (most notably Leisure Suit Larry 2, but I wouldn't recommend that in a classroom...)! I'm currently at Purdue University, were a lot of research is going on into the educational value of games. A group of students here is making a FPS that teaches chemistry (not quite sure how _that_ one works, actually...) So, I think games can definitely be used to educate, and it's a fairly unexplored, or at least underdeveloped, market.
I don't think Nintendo had the problem with the alt.culture so much as the nudity. Of course, if Nintendo had a buck in nudity...
Nah, "Terrifying Symphony of Alien Thunder" is the obvious band name there. They'd be an underground goth/industrial band, of course.
I'm waiting for all the add-ons to be bundled with the game into Half-Life 2: Gold Edition and that to go gold. ("Gold" doesn't even look like a word anymore...)