In my opinion:
The Oscars were made for the sole purpose of Hollywood to award itself. Until recently, the
foreign film category has managed to keep foreign
films that were BETTER than all of the American films
nominated for "Best Picture" from getting proper
recognition.
Re:Mediocre people can no longer get good jobs! D'
on
The Laid-off Techie
·
· Score: 2
Yeah, now we just need to get rid of mediocre CEOs
who think that a full time software engineer should also be able to do the full time jobs of a sysadmin and web designer.
Re:How much does it cost to power a computer?
on
Voltage Frugal PCs?
·
· Score: 2
My room mate figured out last spring that it cost us $10 a month to keep a PC on 24/7, roughly.
Mind you, this was during the so-called
power crisis in which our electricity rates
in San Diego seemed to triple.
This has most certainly gone down after summer,
and I would guess that it is now costing us no more
than $5.
Really, I've enjoyed a few hours of DAOC myself, but the problem arises that you have to put hours of time into making money and getting items. Getting money in DOAC is harder than gaining levels, IMO, and the best ways of making money (such as learning a tradeskill) take time away from leveling. However, if you just level and try to make money off of the stuff you loot, you'll end up not having enough money to support your character's level. Once I got my character high enough in levels, I found that I would have to devote more
time to the game to level AND make money. Result:
I haven't played DOAC in a couple months, because
I have better things to do with my time.
It seems to me that Everquest is the other way around. Of course, my experience with EQ is
limited to the fact that when I tried it I gained
to about the 5th. level and just gave up because
it just wasn't fun at all. Anyway, in EQ, it
seems to me that it is easy to get stuff, and hard
to gain levels. Unless of course you get power leveled by some level 55 guy who just thinks he can score with you because you are using a female character model.
The way that items work in DAOC is that they degrade slowly, and they also are designed with a particular level. So for an item to work the way
it is supposed to, it needs to "con" around your level. Sooner or later, if you gain levels, your
stuff is going to be next to useless for you. And
even if you keep it, it will eventually fall apart.
So basically this forces players to spend TONS of time doing both leveling and earning if they want to have a decent character.
This is a problem. If it were easier to make money, players would not have to spend hours on
end playing, doing boring, repetetive tasks rather
than fighting monsters and other players. There
would be fewer people devoting their entire lives
to MMORPG games, and the scene would be much
more attractive to the casual gamer who wants
to play 2 or 3 hours a week and still have their
character advance at a decent pace.
I don't know what Final Fantasy Online will be like, but I hope that Square makes it much easier
to enjoy the game without forcing you to make it a
second job. The game would actually become fun,
and there wouldn't be losers out there who would
feel the need to try to turn EQ into a money
making business, or who want to be somehow
compensated for wasting 80 hours a week playing
EQ.
The GeForce 4 Ti 4600, which is the
highest end of those listed, is only listed as
costing $299. I remember that a GeForce 2 Ultra
with 64 Megs of Ram was something around $550 in
the store, even months after it came out.
Of course, I don't know if it is worth it to buy
one of these things. I'm playing Return to Castle
Wolfenstein on my GeForce 2 Pro at full detail, and
I'm still getting good performance.
Sony does sell professional development kits for
a hefty sum of money. It is doubtful that they'd
sell something as powerful for $200. I wasn't
expecting that from the start with this. The Linux
kit for PS2 will be very much like the "black"
Playstation that Sony sold for about $700 back
in the PS1 days. It will be a fun toy for people
to play with. In some cases, people will get their
first taste of game programming on a console with
this kit. People will share some games they made
with their friends. This is primarily a toy
and a learning device.
If the protection layer that has been discussed
is broken somehow, I still doubt it will be much
more than above.
I'll probably be ordering one of these things.
It seems like it will be a pretty cool/fun thing
to have for my PS2. Probably more fun playing
with it than some games.
Most game players are more interested in the game
itself, rather than the advertisements. However, it
is possible to put ads in games without making them
annoying.
The first thing that should never, ever, ever be done
is to make the whole game an ad for something.
In the old days of the NES, there were TONS of crappy
games produced that were basically ads. There was
a game featuring the "Noid" mascot for Dominoes Pizza. There was also a game centered around McDonalds, Seven Up, and plenty of other stuff,
IIRC.
I guess the next worse thing is to make a game that
is crappy, but with a popular theme, in order to
stick ads in it. Examples of this are the games
that starred Shaq and Jordan which were not basketball games. Not surprisingly, Pepsi ads were crammed into Shaq-Fu.
While this new system seems totally awesome, I think
the reason why I don't have a Macintosh is because I
can't build one.
I wish that I could go to the store, buy the components, and put one together myself, just like
I can with a PC. I know I can't as a result of
Apple owning much of the hardware.
I read this article and I agree with the author. It'd be nice if apple sold barebones G4s. That would make owning a Macintosh cheaper and more fun since you could easily customize by yourself.
Agreed. When I've always used the W3C logo for a page conforming to the W3C standards, I have always linked the logo to a URL that will validate my HTML.
Obviously, it looks bad if a page displays the logo and does not validate. I'm not blaming everyone involved with the magazine, but they should really get on the case of the web page designer(s) to either
get the HTML to validate, or to remove the logo.
It is a pet peeve of mine when people use the logos without validating.
Whenever I buy a PS2 game, I ususally do not read
the manual until after I've played the game. The
first time I play, I see NO end user lisence agreement stating that to play the game I need to
agree to the terms of the lisence, unlike software for my PC.
While there may be an agreement in the manual somewhere, I don't have to read or agree to it
in any way to play the game. The same goes with DVDs
that I buy.
As far as I'm concerned, I haven't agreed to a single thing at all when I pop in the PS2 disc
and play it. As far as I'm concerned, I should
be able to play whatever I want in the thing as
long as I bought it legally.
I've never played burned discs on my consoles, and
have no intention on ever doing it. I have, however, played import discs on my consoles, and
have every intention on doing it again if there
is a game I really want that will not be released
here in the USA.
A more fair ruling, IMO, would be to force mod
chip makers to make their products in a way such that burned discs can not be read, but imports
still can.
Honestly, I doubt Sony of UK or Sony of America lose much sales over imports. Only a very small
percentage of people will buy an import when a
US release of the game is imminent. Not too many
people want to play through FFX having to spend 5
minutes on every dialogue box looking through a
kanji dictionary.
Loki made some excellent ports, including ports of games that were originally written with Direct X in mind. I was very pleased to be able to buy a Linux
version of Quake 3 Arena from them.
This page compares anime to Disney movie animation, and attempts to say that Disney animation is far superior, with both superior characters and plot.
If that is the case, why did Disney feel it necessary to rip off from Kimba the White Lion?
Also ignored is the fact that Disney recycles the same "Princess" and "Prince" characters over and over again in their movies.
Just an observation.
This guy is going out of his way to say that if you watch anime, you'll end up like the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons. Sure, there are those people
who have their whole life revolve around anime.
Then again, there are also hard core Disney fanatics out there who are the same way.
Imagine in the near future that the big networks
manage to make their signals such that they can only be viewed by using a special reciever/DVR device. If you wanted to watch TV, you would HAVE
to buy one of these, in addition to a TV.
It might take the networks to buy some laws
to get this done, but it could happen.
This DVR will allow you to time shift, but will not allow you to fast forward through commercials. The networks could also have a pay-per-view scheme so that it charges you whenever you view anything, no matter how much you've already seen it. Or perhaps ever minute you're watching something, you are being charged some amount.
I'm sure somebody over there has thought of this
sort of device.
Re:Soon to be seen in a grocery-store parking lot.
on
The Ultimate S.U.V.
·
· Score: 1
At first glance this looks worthy of a mod down,
but really, it isn't that far from the truth.
I know of many people with high paying jobs who seem to have two or three Benzes in the driveway,
(one of them an ML Class)and spend every day on
the golf course. The only real work they do is make decisions in meetings, boss those around
under them, and talk on the cell phone with business associates.
Many of them actually do make around $500,000 a year or more... roughly $3 a minute!!
Their wives pretty much haul the kids around in the
ML Class all day to sports, music lessons, etc.
They could care less about the fact that the cars
they drive are hazardous to the environment.
They charge insane amounts on their cards, since
their husbands make over $1000 in one day,
it doesn't really matter that much.
This is a fairly accurate picture of the family
of an upper level executive, believe it or not.
I know quite a few through association with
none other than my parents. My parents were
able to move into a more affluent neighborhood
after years of my dad working his tail off.
Though he built his worth from nothing to over $2 Million over the years, he is still a pauper compared to some of these people.
The thing is that I don't think it'd make me any
happier to live like my parents or their new
super wealthy neighbors. There comes a point
when you really don't _need_ more money.
Your post makes sense, except that many college
students are beyond the "do whatever MTV tells me"
mentality. Of course, maybe I'm wrong since I only
hang out with other CS people.
A question I have that is hard to answer:
Does MTV merely understand teen pop culture well,
or are they part of a process that creates it?
Or is it a bit of both?
For those of your who don't know, Orange County is
the county that lies directly between LA and San Diego counties. Orange County is home to Disneyland,
Knott's Berry Farm, the Crystal Cathedral, etc.
It isn't exactly fair calling it a suburb of L.A.
entirely, even though the whole thing is a fairly large, interrupted sprawl of homes and shopping districts.
I suppose that North OC is a bit more like
Los Angeles than South OC. South OC is actually
bit more like San Diego. Not that there is a
huge difference between LA and San Diego except
for sheer size.
I doubt we'll see standard "notebook" components,
unfortunately. This seems to be where the big
computer manufacturing companies really like to
leech consumers.
I'd personally like to see this, but I don't think it will happen.
Linux boot disc for XBox coming soon?
on
X-Box Emulated (Not)
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It is my understanding that the XBox has some sort
of protection scheme on both the games and the hardware so that
1) You can't play games without the proper key on
them in the XBox.
2) Games won't play without the XBox's key.
I might be wrong, or oversimplifying it, but
this is my understanding. The Games require the XBox key, and the XBox requires a Game's key.
It is apparent that these people who made this,
provided that it works (I haven't tried it yet, since I've got no XBox games), must know SOMETHING about this if my understanding is correct.
Some people on/. have suggested that documentation was somehow leaked about the protection scheme.
Either that or it was cracked. Neither would
surprise me.
If this is the case, then I'm wondering if this
information could be used to make a Linux install
disc for the XBox, one that had a valid key to be
played.
Can anyone with any more knowledge of the XBox give
any insight on the possibility of this?
I don't mind what kind of lame ass package AOL/Time Warner thinks up, and I don't care how much it
costs. It could cost $1000 and I don't care.
As long as I can get the cable modem service
separate from all the other junk and still pay the
same price (~$50 here), I'll be happy.
Now if AOL/Time Warner forces everyone who wants
a cable modem to buy all the other crap, that would
be a different story. I hope they don't plan on replacing all of their cable services with this one package.
By the Sega Portable, I assume you are referring to the "Game Gear."
It wasn't ahead of its time in the least, seeing that it was almost the exact same thing as the Sega Master System, only smaller.
The handheld system, IMO, that was ahead of its time was the Atari Lynx, as it was a 16-Bit handheld in the era of 16-Bit home consoles.
Game Gear and Game Boy were both 8-Bit systems.
Really, both the Game Gear and Lynx were superior
to the original Game Boy in just about everything
but battery life, but I'd say that only the Lynx
was "ahead of its time."
There was also a portable version of the Turbo
Grafx 16, IMO... but I don't know much about it.
I don't remember if it did have a backlit screen.
Sega later did release the "Nomad," which was essentially the same as the Genesis and also the "Genesis CD-X" which was a console that combined
the Genesis and Sega CD into one unit that was
about the size of a portable music CD player for the day, only about twice as thick.
Ah. Mystic Quest.
I only watched my friend play it. It wasn't
that great. Pretty much FF for dummies, as far as
I can tell.
As far as the "FF Legend" series for GameBoy,
I don't consider those to be part of the FF series
at all, basically because they had a different
title in Japan. In fact I believe they were
part of the "SaGa" series in Japan.
"FF Adventure" for GameBoy is also not part of
FF in Japan, and is rather part of the "Seiken Densetsu" / "Mana" series. Secret of Mana is the sequal of FFA.
Note that this is my opinion only.
If you think I'm on crack for liking FF4,
that is up to you.
FF1: Wander around aimlessly for hours on end
getting poisoned, paralyzed, and ultimately killed
by monsters. Surprisingly enough I beat it eventually after getting lots of help from my
Nintendo Power player's guide. Of course, I
was in 5th. grade at the time, so you can't blame
me.
FF2 & 3: Never released here at all, and I'm
too lazy to play them on an emulator right now.
FF4: The story and script are both cheezy, but
for some reason I still have more fun playing
this game over and over again than playing
any other game, period. Difficult if
you play the "original" version (not the
hacked up version known as FF2 here in the US)
or the Playstation version. IMO this is the
greatest game ever made, and probably always will
be.
FF5: Also really fun. Not as good as 4, sorta
better than 6... or at least a tad more difficult.
Job System is kinda fun.
FF6: Lotsa characters, lots of cool powers.
Probably the first game in the series where
it is too easy to create over powered chracters
that can kill the last boss in a turn.
FF7: Huge change of scenery for the first time.
The first disc is lots of fun, 2 and 3 aren't
quite as much fun. The first game that Square
put graphics above story, unfortunately.
FF Tactics: This game is challenging until
about halfway through. Then it becomes easy
when your guys are more powerful and you get
all these special unique characters with
overpowered abilities. Oh well, it is a LOT
of fun, and is better than 7 or 8 for sure.
FF8: Take one Leonardo di Caprio clone, throw
in a bunch of other pretty looking guys and
a crappy story. Then add some chocobos and
pretend it is Final Fantasy. I still have
nightmares about this game. Heck, the FF movie
is better than this.
FF9: Square caught a clue at how horrible FF8
was and made this game much more like the SNES
ones. The result is a kickass game that is
almost as enjoyable as FF4 for me.
FF10: I haven't started playing this game yet
thanks to Super Smash Bros. Melee.
FF11: I'm in agreement with those that think
this should have been just called FF Online.
IMO it shouldn't be part of the main series,
but rather be a side game like FFT was.
Mind you that I'm not against an FF online
game at all. I hope I get to make my own custom
black mage (complete with pointy hat). That'd
be cool. However, I think the games in the main
series should focus on the single player
story based RPG.
I might see your point with some of the authors you mentioned, but Hemmingway and Fitzgerald!? I guess it is your opinion.
LOTR is great literature, IMO.
Other authors are probably more popular in academia, but I think Tolkien is deserving of
some respect as an author and a linguist.
I've been concerned that there might be another
console game market crash, but current sales figures might proove me wrong. Sony seems to be
selling tons of PS2 consoles now, despite the
fact that everyone was ripping on them for the
poor launch. It is next to impossible to get an
XBox or GameCube in any store where I live, and
there has even been a shortage of controllers and
memory cards for those systems as well. While
I've not seem a game a truthfully like enough
for XBox to buy one... there are great games
on the other two consoles, like Super Smash Bros.
Melee for GC and FF10 for PS2.
And then throwing in the GBA to the equation,
which I think is a wonderful system (probably
because it reminds me of the SNES).
Perhaps, if things go well, we'll see another few
years that are reminiscent of the 16-bit days.
We might see great games because of
competition between the console makers. I guess
we'll have to wait a little while though to see
if it is true.
Am I wrong in assuming that people with high
end audio equipment are those who are most likely
to buy lots of CDs? Now many members of the RIAA are putting out a products that are potentially incompatible with many high end CD players.
Both my roomate and myself have high end CD players
in our cars. It is fairly aggrivating to know that there is a possibility that our CD players might
not work with new CDs. Does the RIAA actually
expect me to go and spend hundreds of dollars to
replace my current CD player with a new model?
Sure, we're not running to the store for the latest
Backstreet Boys, or Brittney Spears album... but I bet that we buy on average more CDs per year than the average consumer.
The thing is that I _know_ that just like everything else out there that was supposed to
prevent piracy, this nonsense will be cracked in due time. To listen to music I bought legally, I'll probably be forced to use a crack rip a CD to MP3, and then recopy it onto a CD-R that will work in my car. Mind you the copy will be of inferior quality, and that I've just violated the DMCA in doing that.
Yes, that is right, to listen to CDs I bought legally, I'm going to have to violate a law anyway.
Case in point... this sort of BS is probably going
just INCREASE piracy. Do they think that I'm going
to PAY MONEY for a defective CD?
Slashdot Mirror
In my opinion:
The Oscars were made for the sole purpose of Hollywood to award itself. Until recently, the
foreign film category has managed to keep foreign
films that were BETTER than all of the American films
nominated for "Best Picture" from getting proper
recognition.
Yeah, now we just need to get rid of mediocre CEOs
who think that a full time software engineer should also be able to do the full time jobs of a sysadmin and web designer.
Mind you, this was during the so-called
power crisis in which our electricity rates
in San Diego seemed to triple.
This has most certainly gone down after summer,
and I would guess that it is now costing us no more
than $5.
time to the game to level AND make money. Result:
I haven't played DOAC in a couple months, because
I have better things to do with my time.
It seems to me that Everquest is the other way around. Of course, my experience with EQ is
limited to the fact that when I tried it I gained
to about the 5th. level and just gave up because
it just wasn't fun at all. Anyway, in EQ, it
seems to me that it is easy to get stuff, and hard
to gain levels. Unless of course you get power leveled by some level 55 guy who just thinks he can score with you because you are using a female character model.
The way that items work in DAOC is that they degrade slowly, and they also are designed with a particular level. So for an item to work the way
it is supposed to, it needs to "con" around your level. Sooner or later, if you gain levels, your
stuff is going to be next to useless for you. And
even if you keep it, it will eventually fall apart.
So basically this forces players to spend TONS of time doing both leveling and earning if they want to have a decent character.
This is a problem. If it were easier to make money, players would not have to spend hours on
end playing, doing boring, repetetive tasks rather
than fighting monsters and other players. There
would be fewer people devoting their entire lives
to MMORPG games, and the scene would be much
more attractive to the casual gamer who wants
to play 2 or 3 hours a week and still have their
character advance at a decent pace.
I don't know what Final Fantasy Online will be like, but I hope that Square makes it much easier
to enjoy the game without forcing you to make it a
second job. The game would actually become fun,
and there wouldn't be losers out there who would
feel the need to try to turn EQ into a money
making business, or who want to be somehow
compensated for wasting 80 hours a week playing
EQ.
highest end of those listed, is only listed as
costing $299. I remember that a GeForce 2 Ultra
with 64 Megs of Ram was something around $550 in
the store, even months after it came out.
Of course, I don't know if it is worth it to buy
one of these things. I'm playing Return to Castle
Wolfenstein on my GeForce 2 Pro at full detail, and
I'm still getting good performance.
a hefty sum of money. It is doubtful that they'd
sell something as powerful for $200. I wasn't
expecting that from the start with this. The Linux
kit for PS2 will be very much like the "black"
Playstation that Sony sold for about $700 back
in the PS1 days. It will be a fun toy for people
to play with. In some cases, people will get their
first taste of game programming on a console with
this kit. People will share some games they made
with their friends. This is primarily a toy
and a learning device.
If the protection layer that has been discussed
is broken somehow, I still doubt it will be much
more than above.
I'll probably be ordering one of these things.
It seems like it will be a pretty cool/fun thing
to have for my PS2. Probably more fun playing
with it than some games.
itself, rather than the advertisements. However, it
is possible to put ads in games without making them
annoying.
The first thing that should never, ever, ever be done
is to make the whole game an ad for something.
In the old days of the NES, there were TONS of crappy
games produced that were basically ads. There was
a game featuring the "Noid" mascot for Dominoes Pizza. There was also a game centered around McDonalds, Seven Up, and plenty of other stuff,
IIRC.
I guess the next worse thing is to make a game that
is crappy, but with a popular theme, in order to
stick ads in it. Examples of this are the games
that starred Shaq and Jordan which were not basketball games. Not surprisingly, Pepsi ads were crammed into Shaq-Fu.
the reason why I don't have a Macintosh is because I
can't build one.
I wish that I could go to the store, buy the components, and put one together myself, just like
I can with a PC. I know I can't as a result of
Apple owning much of the hardware.
I read this article and I agree with the author. It'd be nice if apple sold barebones G4s. That would make owning a Macintosh cheaper and more fun since you could easily customize by yourself.
Agreed. When I've always used the W3C logo for a page conforming to the W3C standards, I have always linked the logo to a URL that will validate my HTML.
Obviously, it looks bad if a page displays the logo and does not validate. I'm not blaming everyone involved with the magazine, but they should really get on the case of the web page designer(s) to either
get the HTML to validate, or to remove the logo.
It is a pet peeve of mine when people use the logos without validating.
the manual until after I've played the game. The
first time I play, I see NO end user lisence agreement stating that to play the game I need to
agree to the terms of the lisence, unlike software for my PC.
While there may be an agreement in the manual somewhere, I don't have to read or agree to it
in any way to play the game. The same goes with DVDs
that I buy.
As far as I'm concerned, I haven't agreed to a single thing at all when I pop in the PS2 disc
and play it. As far as I'm concerned, I should
be able to play whatever I want in the thing as
long as I bought it legally.
I've never played burned discs on my consoles, and
have no intention on ever doing it. I have, however, played import discs on my consoles, and
have every intention on doing it again if there
is a game I really want that will not be released
here in the USA.
A more fair ruling, IMO, would be to force mod
chip makers to make their products in a way such that burned discs can not be read, but imports
still can.
Honestly, I doubt Sony of UK or Sony of America lose much sales over imports. Only a very small
percentage of people will buy an import when a
US release of the game is imminent. Not too many
people want to play through FFX having to spend 5
minutes on every dialogue box looking through a
kanji dictionary.
version of Quake 3 Arena from them.
Truly this is a shame.
If that is the case, why did Disney feel it necessary to rip off from Kimba the White Lion?
Also ignored is the fact that Disney recycles the same "Princess" and "Prince" characters over and over again in their movies.
Just an observation.
This guy is going out of his way to say that if you watch anime, you'll end up like the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons. Sure, there are those people
who have their whole life revolve around anime.
Then again, there are also hard core Disney fanatics out there who are the same way.
manage to make their signals such that they can only be viewed by using a special reciever/DVR device. If you wanted to watch TV, you would HAVE
to buy one of these, in addition to a TV.
It might take the networks to buy some laws
to get this done, but it could happen.
This DVR will allow you to time shift, but will not allow you to fast forward through commercials. The networks could also have a pay-per-view scheme so that it charges you whenever you view anything, no matter how much you've already seen it. Or perhaps ever minute you're watching something, you are being charged some amount.
I'm sure somebody over there has thought of this
sort of device.
At first glance this looks worthy of a mod down,
but really, it isn't that far from the truth.
I know of many people with high paying jobs who seem to have two or three Benzes in the driveway,
(one of them an ML Class)and spend every day on
the golf course. The only real work they do is make decisions in meetings, boss those around
under them, and talk on the cell phone with business associates.
Many of them actually do make around $500,000 a year or more... roughly $3 a minute!!
Their wives pretty much haul the kids around in the
ML Class all day to sports, music lessons, etc.
They could care less about the fact that the cars
they drive are hazardous to the environment.
They charge insane amounts on their cards, since
their husbands make over $1000 in one day,
it doesn't really matter that much.
This is a fairly accurate picture of the family
of an upper level executive, believe it or not.
I know quite a few through association with
none other than my parents. My parents were
able to move into a more affluent neighborhood
after years of my dad working his tail off.
Though he built his worth from nothing to over $2 Million over the years, he is still a pauper compared to some of these people.
The thing is that I don't think it'd make me any
happier to live like my parents or their new
super wealthy neighbors. There comes a point
when you really don't _need_ more money.
Your post makes sense, except that many college
students are beyond the "do whatever MTV tells me"
mentality. Of course, maybe I'm wrong since I only
hang out with other CS people.
A question I have that is hard to answer:
Does MTV merely understand teen pop culture well,
or are they part of a process that creates it?
Or is it a bit of both?
Orange County is kind of enigmatic really.
For those of your who don't know, Orange County is
the county that lies directly between LA and San Diego counties. Orange County is home to Disneyland,
Knott's Berry Farm, the Crystal Cathedral, etc.
It isn't exactly fair calling it a suburb of L.A.
entirely, even though the whole thing is a fairly large, interrupted sprawl of homes and shopping districts.
I suppose that North OC is a bit more like
Los Angeles than South OC. South OC is actually
bit more like San Diego. Not that there is a
huge difference between LA and San Diego except
for sheer size.
unfortunately. This seems to be where the big
computer manufacturing companies really like to
leech consumers.
I'd personally like to see this, but I don't think it will happen.
It is my understanding that the XBox has some sort
/. have suggested that documentation was somehow leaked about the protection scheme.
of protection scheme on both the games and the hardware so that
1) You can't play games without the proper key on
them in the XBox.
2) Games won't play without the XBox's key.
I might be wrong, or oversimplifying it, but
this is my understanding. The Games require the XBox key, and the XBox requires a Game's key.
It is apparent that these people who made this,
provided that it works (I haven't tried it yet, since I've got no XBox games), must know SOMETHING about this if my understanding is correct.
Some people on
Either that or it was cracked. Neither would
surprise me.
If this is the case, then I'm wondering if this
information could be used to make a Linux install
disc for the XBox, one that had a valid key to be
played.
Can anyone with any more knowledge of the XBox give
any insight on the possibility of this?
I don't mind what kind of lame ass package AOL/Time Warner thinks up, and I don't care how much it
costs. It could cost $1000 and I don't care.
As long as I can get the cable modem service
separate from all the other junk and still pay the
same price (~$50 here), I'll be happy.
Now if AOL/Time Warner forces everyone who wants
a cable modem to buy all the other crap, that would
be a different story. I hope they don't plan on replacing all of their cable services with this one package.
By the Sega Portable, I assume you are referring to the "Game Gear."
It wasn't ahead of its time in the least, seeing that it was almost the exact same thing as the Sega Master System, only smaller.
The handheld system, IMO, that was ahead of its time was the Atari Lynx, as it was a 16-Bit handheld in the era of 16-Bit home consoles.
Game Gear and Game Boy were both 8-Bit systems.
Really, both the Game Gear and Lynx were superior
to the original Game Boy in just about everything
but battery life, but I'd say that only the Lynx
was "ahead of its time."
There was also a portable version of the Turbo
Grafx 16, IMO... but I don't know much about it.
I don't remember if it did have a backlit screen.
Sega later did release the "Nomad," which was essentially the same as the Genesis and also the "Genesis CD-X" which was a console that combined
the Genesis and Sega CD into one unit that was
about the size of a portable music CD player for the day, only about twice as thick.
Ah. Mystic Quest.
I only watched my friend play it. It wasn't
that great. Pretty much FF for dummies, as far as
I can tell.
As far as the "FF Legend" series for GameBoy,
I don't consider those to be part of the FF series
at all, basically because they had a different
title in Japan. In fact I believe they were
part of the "SaGa" series in Japan.
"FF Adventure" for GameBoy is also not part of
FF in Japan, and is rather part of the "Seiken Densetsu" / "Mana" series. Secret of Mana is the sequal of FFA.
Note that this is my opinion only.
If you think I'm on crack for liking FF4,
that is up to you.
FF1: Wander around aimlessly for hours on end
getting poisoned, paralyzed, and ultimately killed
by monsters. Surprisingly enough I beat it eventually after getting lots of help from my
Nintendo Power player's guide. Of course, I
was in 5th. grade at the time, so you can't blame
me.
FF2 & 3: Never released here at all, and I'm
too lazy to play them on an emulator right now.
FF4: The story and script are both cheezy, but
for some reason I still have more fun playing
this game over and over again than playing
any other game, period. Difficult if
you play the "original" version (not the
hacked up version known as FF2 here in the US)
or the Playstation version. IMO this is the
greatest game ever made, and probably always will
be.
FF5: Also really fun. Not as good as 4, sorta
better than 6... or at least a tad more difficult.
Job System is kinda fun.
FF6: Lotsa characters, lots of cool powers.
Probably the first game in the series where
it is too easy to create over powered chracters
that can kill the last boss in a turn.
FF7: Huge change of scenery for the first time.
The first disc is lots of fun, 2 and 3 aren't
quite as much fun. The first game that Square
put graphics above story, unfortunately.
FF Tactics: This game is challenging until
about halfway through. Then it becomes easy
when your guys are more powerful and you get
all these special unique characters with
overpowered abilities. Oh well, it is a LOT
of fun, and is better than 7 or 8 for sure.
FF8: Take one Leonardo di Caprio clone, throw
in a bunch of other pretty looking guys and
a crappy story. Then add some chocobos and
pretend it is Final Fantasy. I still have
nightmares about this game. Heck, the FF movie
is better than this.
FF9: Square caught a clue at how horrible FF8
was and made this game much more like the SNES
ones. The result is a kickass game that is
almost as enjoyable as FF4 for me.
FF10: I haven't started playing this game yet
thanks to Super Smash Bros. Melee.
FF11: I'm in agreement with those that think
this should have been just called FF Online.
IMO it shouldn't be part of the main series,
but rather be a side game like FFT was.
Mind you that I'm not against an FF online
game at all. I hope I get to make my own custom
black mage (complete with pointy hat). That'd
be cool. However, I think the games in the main
series should focus on the single player
story based RPG.
I might see your point with some of the authors you mentioned, but Hemmingway and Fitzgerald!? I guess it is your opinion.
LOTR is great literature, IMO.
Other authors are probably more popular in academia, but I think Tolkien is deserving of
some respect as an author and a linguist.
I've been concerned that there might be another
console game market crash, but current sales figures might proove me wrong. Sony seems to be
selling tons of PS2 consoles now, despite the
fact that everyone was ripping on them for the
poor launch. It is next to impossible to get an
XBox or GameCube in any store where I live, and
there has even been a shortage of controllers and
memory cards for those systems as well. While
I've not seem a game a truthfully like enough
for XBox to buy one... there are great games
on the other two consoles, like Super Smash Bros.
Melee for GC and FF10 for PS2.
And then throwing in the GBA to the equation,
which I think is a wonderful system (probably
because it reminds me of the SNES).
Perhaps, if things go well, we'll see another few
years that are reminiscent of the 16-bit days.
We might see great games because of
competition between the console makers. I guess
we'll have to wait a little while though to see
if it is true.
Am I wrong in assuming that people with high
end audio equipment are those who are most likely
to buy lots of CDs? Now many members of the RIAA are putting out a products that are potentially incompatible with many high end CD players.
Both my roomate and myself have high end CD players
in our cars. It is fairly aggrivating to know that there is a possibility that our CD players might
not work with new CDs. Does the RIAA actually
expect me to go and spend hundreds of dollars to
replace my current CD player with a new model?
Sure, we're not running to the store for the latest
Backstreet Boys, or Brittney Spears album... but I bet that we buy on average more CDs per year than the average consumer.
The thing is that I _know_ that just like everything else out there that was supposed to
prevent piracy, this nonsense will be cracked in due time. To listen to music I bought legally, I'll probably be forced to use a crack rip a CD to MP3, and then recopy it onto a CD-R that will work in my car. Mind you the copy will be of inferior quality, and that I've just violated the DMCA in doing that.
Yes, that is right, to listen to CDs I bought legally, I'm going to have to violate a law anyway.
Case in point... this sort of BS is probably going
just INCREASE piracy. Do they think that I'm going
to PAY MONEY for a defective CD?