Paparback books have gone up in price 3x since I was a kid (I started buying them around 1988, if I recall they were roughly $2.50). Of course, a few years before they had been half that price.
There's quite a few games that were as immersive as books to me... Deus Ex, System Shock 1 and 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Planescape: Torment, and Beyond Good and Evil all come to mind. All of those games have fairly carefully crafted worlds, with interesting characters in them and lots of detail... they are vivid in various ways.
Could've fooled me. I used Macs exclusively around the time the 680x0 to PPC transition happened, and I thought it was managed pretty awfully. Quadras still outsold PPCs for quite a bit, the PPCs were not impressive at all, applications were incompatible, and combined with the Newton flop it more or less resulted in Apple's near bankruptcy.
Personally, I like mouse & gamepad for FPS games now. Mouse in right hand, left half of gamepad in left hand. I have the mouse for aiming, shooting, and reloading, an analog stick for moving (far more natural and easy than the WASD thing), a d-pad for changing weapons/etc, a click thing on the analog stick for jumping, and two shoulder buttons for crouch and, say, a lean modifier. Works wonders. Plus, the gamepad works far better for most things other than FPS games and clicky RPGs... such as Zombie Smashers, or Jets n' Guns. Keyboards bite.
I quit shopping at Wal-Mart because the combination of really high cieling and really shiny floor gives me vertigo. Also, their stores are creepy and I hate them.
Dude, I still use a Rio500 too. I got an ipod about a year and a half ago and sold it after about 3 months since I couldn't stand it. The 2 worst problems: the awful battery, and the awful control interface. I can operate the Rio in my pocket, blindly, since I can easily feel the buttons and they have good tactile feedback. With the ipod, I always had to take it out, look at it, and use both hands to do anything. And the ipod goes nuts if you try to pocket it without locking the controls. Now if only the SD slot on my Rio hadn't died... but ah well.
If you liked Streets of Rage, go search for Zombie Smashers X2. Its an absolutely awesome game of the same sort, except you get to maul zombies, vampires, ninjas, pirates, nazis, vampire nazis, robots, etc. Incredible game. Needs a gamepad to really play right though. I think the game is at www.totallyscrewed.net, but I'm not certain at the moment.
I honestly liked "The Island" despite some awful product placement in the beginning, but I like MST3K even more... I gotta go find that now. Incidentally, did you ever see the MST3K version of "The Pumaman"? That movie is incredibly awesome.
When I went to see Kung Fu Hustle (best movie this year, incidentally) part of the theatre drop-ceiling actually collapsed due to water leaking on it from above. Fortunately it fell on the other side of the room, and dropped some ominous wet chunky bits of ceiling tile, convincing people to move before it seriously fell. Theatre didn't bother to interrupt the movie at all, though I suppose they've fixed it by now.
Marathon Infinity was a new game, in the same manner that Doom 2 was a new game. It was a huge new campaign for Marathon 2, with some new weapons and enemies, and some engine tweaks to allow for some giant maps. It also came with some decent map and resource editing tools. If you go look around at www.bungie.org you can find all the Marathon games free, as well as an OpenGL-based engine to play them on PC. They are most excellent games, and I'm still disappointed that neither Halo has brought back the awesome Marathon 2 shotguns. Incidentally, Halo hasn't yet proven to be a sequel to Marathon in any way, though its definitely inspired by it and has some references to it.
Dude, come to Virginia. To Williamsburg or Yorktown or Gloucester. You could kill a deer here with a handgun at 10 yards or less. The stupid things just stand around until you walk right up to them. Who needs a 1000 yard rifle for that?
Halo has, on average, much better multiplayer maps than Halo 2. I was quite disappointed that Halo 2 didn't include all of the Halo maps. I particularly liked "Hang Em High" and "Damnation", neither of which has any equivalent in Halo 2.
I drank a whole bunch of water and stayed up for about 96 hours once... passed out when I sat down and relaxed at the end and was out for about 16 hours, but felt fine afterwards.
Does anyone else find the idea of monkeys using a symbolic interface (using a cursor to select something) even equally as remarkable as the drug itself?
I really hadn't thought monkeys could learn that, maybe gorillas, but not monkeys.
When I was in middle school we still used Apple IIGS systems, and they were only really used for keyboarding and (primitive) application training. That was what was officially taught, but the instructor would let anyone who could type over 30 wpm do whatever they wanted, and she had a good pile of books on Apple Basic, ranging from very simple to fairly advanced games programming. I learned quite a bit of procedural programming in that class, but unfortunately didn't see any again until college, except for writing small applications for my ti85 in high school.
Lately, everything in my old school system has been directed towards keyboarding and application training; its now the primary focus of almost every computer in my high school, with the exception of a few in the art department. Nobody teaches programming anywhere, and the students are about as sharp as rocks. Everyone loves PowerPoint. Its a bit depressing. Not to mention that most of the old (actually very good) math instructors have retired, and we now have students trying to pass algebra 2 until they graduate. They have these pathetic "math drill" programs that ask repetitive simple math problems, and they're using them in computer labs in high school... the same stupid drills that would have been done on paper in middle school, in less time, and for far less money.
Slashdot Mirror
Then hopefully in 10-20 more years we will be able to travel back in time and kill those responsible for the horror.
Paparback books have gone up in price 3x since I was a kid (I started buying them around 1988, if I recall they were roughly $2.50). Of course, a few years before they had been half that price.
The mainstream media only attacks video games since they fear losing people's attention (their viewers, their captives, their profits) to video games.
There's quite a few games that were as immersive as books to me... Deus Ex, System Shock 1 and 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Planescape: Torment, and Beyond Good and Evil all come to mind. All of those games have fairly carefully crafted worlds, with interesting characters in them and lots of detail... they are vivid in various ways.
And yea, crazy people are nuts.
Could've fooled me. I used Macs exclusively around the time the 680x0 to PPC transition happened, and I thought it was managed pretty awfully. Quadras still outsold PPCs for quite a bit, the PPCs were not impressive at all, applications were incompatible, and combined with the Newton flop it more or less resulted in Apple's near bankruptcy.
Personally, I like mouse & gamepad for FPS games now. Mouse in right hand, left half of gamepad in left hand. I have the mouse for aiming, shooting, and reloading, an analog stick for moving (far more natural and easy than the WASD thing), a d-pad for changing weapons/etc, a click thing on the analog stick for jumping, and two shoulder buttons for crouch and, say, a lean modifier. Works wonders. Plus, the gamepad works far better for most things other than FPS games and clicky RPGs... such as Zombie Smashers, or Jets n' Guns. Keyboards bite.
I quit shopping at Wal-Mart because the combination of really high cieling and really shiny floor gives me vertigo. Also, their stores are creepy and I hate them.
I dunno, Sony's crappy computers are called VAIO, and they seem to sell OK, despite a retarded name, proprietary software, and poor quality.
Dude, I still use a Rio500 too. I got an ipod about a year and a half ago and sold it after about 3 months since I couldn't stand it. The 2 worst problems: the awful battery, and the awful control interface. I can operate the Rio in my pocket, blindly, since I can easily feel the buttons and they have good tactile feedback. With the ipod, I always had to take it out, look at it, and use both hands to do anything. And the ipod goes nuts if you try to pocket it without locking the controls. Now if only the SD slot on my Rio hadn't died... but ah well.
If you liked Streets of Rage, go search for Zombie Smashers X2. Its an absolutely awesome game of the same sort, except you get to maul zombies, vampires, ninjas, pirates, nazis, vampire nazis, robots, etc. Incredible game. Needs a gamepad to really play right though. I think the game is at www.totallyscrewed.net, but I'm not certain at the moment.
Many religious beliefs will be decimated when Nixon returns and smashes them!
Life on Mars will not stop Nixon!
I'll take 5!
Dude, that's just wrong... MMORPGs good? Xbox pricier than PC? Sony innovating?
Do you have some sort of evil looking goatee?
Its blind as a bat with laryngitis!
I honestly liked "The Island" despite some awful product placement in the beginning, but I like MST3K even more... I gotta go find that now. Incidentally, did you ever see the MST3K version of "The Pumaman"? That movie is incredibly awesome.
When I went to see Kung Fu Hustle (best movie this year, incidentally) part of the theatre drop-ceiling actually collapsed due to water leaking on it from above. Fortunately it fell on the other side of the room, and dropped some ominous wet chunky bits of ceiling tile, convincing people to move before it seriously fell. Theatre didn't bother to interrupt the movie at all, though I suppose they've fixed it by now.
Marathon Infinity was a new game, in the same manner that Doom 2 was a new game. It was a huge new campaign for Marathon 2, with some new weapons and enemies, and some engine tweaks to allow for some giant maps. It also came with some decent map and resource editing tools. If you go look around at www.bungie.org you can find all the Marathon games free, as well as an OpenGL-based engine to play them on PC. They are most excellent games, and I'm still disappointed that neither Halo has brought back the awesome Marathon 2 shotguns. Incidentally, Halo hasn't yet proven to be a sequel to Marathon in any way, though its definitely inspired by it and has some references to it.
Dude, come to Virginia. To Williamsburg or Yorktown or Gloucester. You could kill a deer here with a handgun at 10 yards or less. The stupid things just stand around until you walk right up to them. Who needs a 1000 yard rifle for that?
When I first saw 'PSP' I immediately thought of an old HK P7 pistol I used to have... the original one was called a 'PSP'.
Dude, where'd you find that?
Not to mention that Halo 2 is less shiny... go look at the awful pistol and compare it to the wonderfully shiny unique looking pistol in Halo.
Halo has, on average, much better multiplayer maps than Halo 2. I was quite disappointed that Halo 2 didn't include all of the Halo maps. I particularly liked "Hang Em High" and "Damnation", neither of which has any equivalent in Halo 2.
I drank a whole bunch of water and stayed up for about 96 hours once... passed out when I sat down and relaxed at the end and was out for about 16 hours, but felt fine afterwards.
Does anyone else find the idea of monkeys using a symbolic interface (using a cursor to select something) even equally as remarkable as the drug itself?
I really hadn't thought monkeys could learn that, maybe gorillas, but not monkeys.
When I was in middle school we still used Apple IIGS systems, and they were only really used for keyboarding and (primitive) application training. That was what was officially taught, but the instructor would let anyone who could type over 30 wpm do whatever they wanted, and she had a good pile of books on Apple Basic, ranging from very simple to fairly advanced games programming. I learned quite a bit of procedural programming in that class, but unfortunately didn't see any again until college, except for writing small applications for my ti85 in high school.
Lately, everything in my old school system has been directed towards keyboarding and application training; its now the primary focus of almost every computer in my high school, with the exception of a few in the art department. Nobody teaches programming anywhere, and the students are about as sharp as rocks. Everyone loves PowerPoint. Its a bit depressing. Not to mention that most of the old (actually very good) math instructors have retired, and we now have students trying to pass algebra 2 until they graduate. They have these pathetic "math drill" programs that ask repetitive simple math problems, and they're using them in computer labs in high school... the same stupid drills that would have been done on paper in middle school, in less time, and for far less money.