The malaise stretches across the board: Nobody's talking about a new GTA game (GTA: Akron maybe?), no Dooms or Quakes or Half Lifes, or even Katamari Damarcys; no AAA titles to make me even inquisitive.
I think there's a Katamari for the PSP out.
I'm holding out for GTA: Emerald City (Seattle)...
agree on wanting both Spore (from Will Wright of Sims fame) and the Nintendo Revolution. if Spore had come out, maybe I would have bought three games in February instead of two.
Wouldn't now be the time for the software houses work on different/quirky games for the current consoles?
There was an article on Slashdot just this past week on some of the new PS3 titles, and there were a lot of different/quirky game titles for the PS3, so the question becomes, should they not just concentrate on porting more Japan-only games instead.
I agree, I personally think xBox360 shot itself in the foot by releasing with so few titles. If PS3 ships with a wider variety of finished titles in stores by Halloween, and has bug crushed most of the titles and the Blu-Ray hardware (due to shipment of Blu-Ray movie/music players and titles this spring), it might work best.
Since more than half of all revenue for the publishers of games comes in the Thanksgiving to New Years period, I don't think they'll be hurting that much, though. But, yes, they'll probably blame any "losses" on piracy, even though that has more to do with China than anything else.
Hmm, of the list those were the only two I would have been interested in.
I seem to recall hearing about SimsVille, and think it was when SimCity was still fairly high on the lists, think maybe it died off when people stopped buying much in the SimCity line, and started becoming way more interested in things like Sims and Sims2 lines.
Oh well, way too many releases right now to worry about what never happened.
i agree with that, with one small modification (well not even modification, more expansion) the tattoo would be in a place only a sexual partner would see, such as the inner thigh or something. no need for the boss to know you have clamydia
Good idea. However, if it measures concentrations of something in the bloodstream, it might work better if more closely situated near the likely infected area.
Actually, for humans we do use tracers, because visible light is less effective inside the body. So fluorescence isn't as useful.
But for mice, it's way easier to just mod their receptors for a specific organ to include fluorescent add-ons that attach to that specific receptor, and are activated by that receptors biochemical pathway.
And it's actually a lot cheaper than having to kill off the mouse earlier, and isn't toxic.
Imagine it this way:
Mouse A: So, how come you're glowing purple, Fred?
Mouse B: Oh, dang, I knew I shouldn't have eaten that purple pill they put in my food today. It didn't smell right, but they've got me on half rations...
Mouse A: Bummer. So, do you think it's cancer or just a proof of concept trial?
Mouse B: Well, the wife says she thinks it's just a Grad student in BMSD doing proof of concept, but I have a nagging feeling it's cancer. My left leg is acting all funny ever since then...
Actually, that sounds like a pretty damn cool idea. Any reason one couldn't use a tattooing dye/ink that absorbed daytime light to glow in the dark/night? Has anyone ever heard of something like this being done?
Well, we do have light-emitting biochemical modifications added to cells which can emit light in the IR and UV bands, or in standard luminescence red/blue/green. Can't see why this couldn't be a tattoo. Originally, it's thought that tattoos were a method of treating illness and providing protection, so it's not that radical an idea, as it existed in the Bronze Age at the very least.
Is there a substance that would, if applied in a tattoo-like manner, be non-toxic to humans but have a lifetime glow effect (even if it did need to charge in the sun). Hell, I'd pay extra for that.
Again, most of the alterations that are done are non-toxic by design, as opposed to some that have an aptotic messenger component that can trigger cell death on receipt of a signal that triggers the pathway. Can't see why this wouldn't be a good idea.
We already have, for example, tattoos placed over medical implants that are activated by magnetism to read blood sugar levels (usually there's a specialized watch placed on them, but the tattoo is really just a marker so you know where to place it). So using them for glow-in-the-dark luminescent tattoos with medical sensor capabilities is merely just taking a number of concepts I've heard of here at the UW Medical Center research seminars and making it reality.
Fine, are you willing to donate your body, while alive, so we can investigate potential treatments for diabetes?
Oh, and we'll be managing your diet - if you're in the control group, we'll give you a preselected combination of food - if you're in the experimental group,... no promises.
And we might decide to have you live in 50 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, if we think temperature might induce apotosis.
And... speaking of that... you have a very good chance of being selected for premature autopsy after, say, six months. We can't give you a shot for that, as the chemicals might interfere, and we'll be slicing your brain into really thin pieces. And showing pictures of it for the next 100 years.
Well? It's either you or the mice. If you can't volunteer, we're willing to have you give us sperm or eggs for us to modify (we won't tell you how), your DNA sequenced, and we'll implant you or your spouse (depending on gender) at a random time chosen by us, after which you'll bring the child to term, and then we'll raise it in an experimental environment where we carefully control everything.
Let's get real. That's how things work in research. It's you or the mice.
Note we also use earthworms, various bugs, and other fun creatures. Mice are a good choice because, genetically, they are a lot closer to humans, grow up fairly quickly, don't have large brains so ethically it's not as bad as experimenting on say dogs or cats, and can even have human modifications of their DNA sequences.. by this I don't mean adding human DNA, just altering their fairly similar DNA to include some extra bits so it matches human DNA in the sequence being investigated.
A lot of recent research that's interesting to me includes designing siRNA and miRNA "virus" packages to target cancers and other tumors in mice specifically bred to have increased, decreased, or normal (control) reactions to certain diseases.
It's fun to watch the tumors glow red, green, blue, yellow, or a mixture of two or more.
The best part is if you squish the mice a bit but not too much, held flat to a transparent plate, you can see the glow without killing off the mice.
Sadly, this doesn't work with humans, they're too dense (can't see thru them easily), or we'd be further along with methods of locating and killing or at least targetting for excision (surgery) the tumor cells, especially when they have designed receptor tags (an offshoot of HIV research, actually).
Now if we could just design glow-in-the-dark instant tattoos for humans, that would change color if you started to have certain diseases (say HIV or TB or whatever), now that would be super cool.
I'd get mine as a standard-light invisible one, with a green serpeant that had red fangs if I had whatever disease, and maybe a blue afro if I was coming down with something common...
My guess is that they're more worried about details of the Iraq misadventure will be found by activist hackers, or Members of the House of Lords or House of Commons visits to.. um... naughty websites... nudge nudge wink wink... you know... than they are of hackers ganging up on website owners and demanding blackmail (which is already illegal and will already result in stiff jail terms).
too bad that the 360 is third place there, but I still think the few 360 owners in Japan will really take to this game, and having it made by RockStar will make it naughty enough that people will check it out.
Now if I could just unlock that secret table tennis scene in the game...
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfat her anonymously published a series of letters in the Maryland Gazette in the 1770s arguing against the royal governor. Those letters helped galvanize public opinion in Maryland for independence and against England. I doubt the royal authorities would have let him go on had he signed his own name to them.
Interesting. I for one am glad my one of my great-...-uncles managed to keep quiet about the fact he rented the horse that Mr. Booth rode away on from his "performance" in a play viewed by Lincoln. They lynched anyone who was even under suspicion of being involved, without trial, at the time. Which teaches one never to rent to actors, they're flight risks...
It's easy to stand up for rights when they're unquestioned. It's a lot harder to stand up for them when they are questioned, and that's when you need them.
Ignore the Games and focus on Features
on
Come the Revolution
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Because, as we all know, having really cool games that are fun to play is less important than having 200 versions of football games which simulate raindrops spattering off the helmets of the football players and audio surround-sound of their breathing.
After all, it's always true that following the true path:
1. make FPS or Sport Game with little or no story line 2. put it on a console that you lose money on 3. expect people to buy lots of games, like say Final Fantasy I to XII. 4. Profit!... now if I could only find the sarcasm key on my keyboard...
Why anyone would want to whip a bug is beyond me, though.
My guess is they'd think their fight to gain rights, in far worse circumstances, had become weakened by the very same people they'd left other nations to avoid but who now were mainstream America.
and look forward to discussing Curling, Beer, and Hockey with them.
Re:Animal Crossing 43, Pokemon 51 ... slate voting
on
Japan's Top 100 Games
·
· Score: 1
If the readers of say, PC Gamer (in the US) were to be polled with the same question, their list would likely be dominated by FPSes and strategy games, probably ignoring less "hardcore" games like The Sims. Likewise, if you were to survey the readers of a European Nintendo mag, they'd probably favor Nintendo games over any others.
Well, I've got the Sims (PC, many add-ons), Sims (GameCube), Sims: The Urbz (GameCube), Sims 2(PC, many add-ons), Sims 2 (xBox) and I don't think I've ever even seen a magazine that would follow them, nor would I necessarily buy one for that kind of info.
Good points.
This isn't a case of ballot stuffing; it's just a matter of demographics... the people who read Famitsu tend to favor traditional, Japanese RPGs. In reality, there are Yu-Gi-Oh games that have outsold some of those top-ranking FF titles, so clearly this list isn't a very accurate representation of game popularity.
I thought so, I remember the Konami investors meeting they talked about ranking of games, and Yu-Gi-Oh games were much more highly ranked, as were Animal Crossing. Hence my response.
I've nothing against the titles listed, I think FF and other genres are quite respectable, even if I haven't played most of them.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, ok. Seattle is called the Emerald City. GTA doesn't use Real City Names so they won't Get Sued.
The malaise stretches across the board: Nobody's talking about a new GTA game (GTA: Akron maybe?), no Dooms or Quakes or Half Lifes, or even Katamari Damarcys; no AAA titles to make me even inquisitive.
...
I think there's a Katamari for the PSP out.
I'm holding out for GTA: Emerald City (Seattle)
agree on wanting both Spore (from Will Wright of Sims fame) and the Nintendo Revolution. if Spore had come out, maybe I would have bought three games in February instead of two.
during February, I bought:
1. Sims 2: Night Life - for my PC, as an upgrade to Sims 2: University
2. Sims 2 - for my xBox, since it's different in the console version
and guides for both (games at EBX, books at Barnes & Noble).
Wouldn't now be the time for the software houses work on different/quirky games for the current consoles?
There was an article on Slashdot just this past week on some of the new PS3 titles, and there were a lot of different/quirky game titles for the PS3, so the question becomes, should they not just concentrate on porting more Japan-only games instead.
I agree, I personally think xBox360 shot itself in the foot by releasing with so few titles. If PS3 ships with a wider variety of finished titles in stores by Halloween, and has bug crushed most of the titles and the Blu-Ray hardware (due to shipment of Blu-Ray movie/music players and titles this spring), it might work best.
Since more than half of all revenue for the publishers of games comes in the Thanksgiving to New Years period, I don't think they'll be hurting that much, though. But, yes, they'll probably blame any "losses" on piracy, even though that has more to do with China than anything else.
Hmm, of the list those were the only two I would have been interested in.
I seem to recall hearing about SimsVille, and think it was when SimCity was still fairly high on the lists, think maybe it died off when people stopped buying much in the SimCity line, and started becoming way more interested in things like Sims and Sims2 lines.
Oh well, way too many releases right now to worry about what never happened.
i agree with that, with one small modification (well not even modification, more expansion) the tattoo would be in a place only a sexual partner would see, such as the inner thigh or something. no need for the boss to know you have clamydia
Good idea. However, if it measures concentrations of something in the bloodstream, it might work better if more closely situated near the likely infected area.
Actually, for humans we do use tracers, because visible light is less effective inside the body. So fluorescence isn't as useful.
...
...
But for mice, it's way easier to just mod their receptors for a specific organ to include fluorescent add-ons that attach to that specific receptor, and are activated by that receptors biochemical pathway.
And it's actually a lot cheaper than having to kill off the mouse earlier, and isn't toxic.
Imagine it this way:
Mouse A: So, how come you're glowing purple, Fred?
Mouse B: Oh, dang, I knew I shouldn't have eaten that purple pill they put in my food today. It didn't smell right, but they've got me on half rations
Mouse A: Bummer. So, do you think it's cancer or just a proof of concept trial?
Mouse B: Well, the wife says she thinks it's just a Grad student in BMSD doing proof of concept, but I have a nagging feeling it's cancer. My left leg is acting all funny ever since then
I can see it now:
Having your roommate get TiVo $xxx per month. - $xxx.
Having your roommate get cellphone-enabled TiVo for $5 a month - $5.
Hacking your roommate's TiVo remotely via an SMS remote hack - Priceless.
Actually, that sounds like a pretty damn cool idea. Any reason one couldn't use a tattooing dye/ink that absorbed daytime light to glow in the dark/night? Has anyone ever heard of something like this being done?
Well, we do have light-emitting biochemical modifications added to cells which can emit light in the IR and UV bands, or in standard luminescence red/blue/green. Can't see why this couldn't be a tattoo. Originally, it's thought that tattoos were a method of treating illness and providing protection, so it's not that radical an idea, as it existed in the Bronze Age at the very least.
Is there a substance that would, if applied in a tattoo-like manner, be non-toxic to humans but have a lifetime glow effect (even if it did need to charge in the sun). Hell, I'd pay extra for that.
Again, most of the alterations that are done are non-toxic by design, as opposed to some that have an aptotic messenger component that can trigger cell death on receipt of a signal that triggers the pathway. Can't see why this wouldn't be a good idea.
We already have, for example, tattoos placed over medical implants that are activated by magnetism to read blood sugar levels (usually there's a specialized watch placed on them, but the tattoo is really just a marker so you know where to place it). So using them for glow-in-the-dark luminescent tattoos with medical sensor capabilities is merely just taking a number of concepts I've heard of here at the UW Medical Center research seminars and making it reality.
I saw films in college of dogs bred to have narcolepsy. They were hillarious. I would love to have a narcoleptic dog.
Funny. Your dog had a similar request for a narcoleptic human.
Fine, are you willing to donate your body, while alive, so we can investigate potential treatments for diabetes?
... no promises.
... speaking of that ... you have a very good chance of being selected for premature autopsy after, say, six months. We can't give you a shot for that, as the chemicals might interfere, and we'll be slicing your brain into really thin pieces. And showing pictures of it for the next 100 years.
.. by this I don't mean adding human DNA, just altering their fairly similar DNA to include some extra bits so it matches human DNA in the sequence being investigated.
Oh, and we'll be managing your diet - if you're in the control group, we'll give you a preselected combination of food - if you're in the experimental group,
And we might decide to have you live in 50 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, if we think temperature might induce apotosis.
And
Well? It's either you or the mice. If you can't volunteer, we're willing to have you give us sperm or eggs for us to modify (we won't tell you how), your DNA sequenced, and we'll implant you or your spouse (depending on gender) at a random time chosen by us, after which you'll bring the child to term, and then we'll raise it in an experimental environment where we carefully control everything.
Let's get real. That's how things work in research. It's you or the mice.
Note we also use earthworms, various bugs, and other fun creatures. Mice are a good choice because, genetically, they are a lot closer to humans, grow up fairly quickly, don't have large brains so ethically it's not as bad as experimenting on say dogs or cats, and can even have human modifications of their DNA sequences
Well?
If we don't pass it on to the USPTO, nothing will change.
I claim prior art in describing this in a story I wrote in 1980 while at Simon Fraser University, in The GOT club magazine.
You'll find copies in the Library of Congress and the Canadian version thereof.
Does this count as intelligent design?
... why yes.
If you consider grad students intelligent
.
.
.
please note that's a joke told by grad students, not of grad students
What gives us the right? How can we do these things to living creatures with minds of their own?
...).
You do realize that they eat dogs, which are much smarter, in about half of the world, don't you?
Or even pigs - they're smarter.
Or goats.
Don't even get me started on force-feeding duck livers to make foie gras (fat liver
A lot of recent research that's interesting to me includes designing siRNA and miRNA "virus" packages to target cancers and other tumors in mice specifically bred to have increased, decreased, or normal (control) reactions to certain diseases.
...
It's fun to watch the tumors glow red, green, blue, yellow, or a mixture of two or more.
The best part is if you squish the mice a bit but not too much, held flat to a transparent plate, you can see the glow without killing off the mice.
Sadly, this doesn't work with humans, they're too dense (can't see thru them easily), or we'd be further along with methods of locating and killing or at least targetting for excision (surgery) the tumor cells, especially when they have designed receptor tags (an offshoot of HIV research, actually).
Now if we could just design glow-in-the-dark instant tattoos for humans, that would change color if you started to have certain diseases (say HIV or TB or whatever), now that would be super cool.
I'd get mine as a standard-light invisible one, with a green serpeant that had red fangs if I had whatever disease, and maybe a blue afro if I was coming down with something common
according to the article. It seems to me that we can expect this to continue to expand, and this will change the mix of popular games.
I've noticed that Konami, for example, does well with martial arts sector games, and that these are especially popular in those countries.
Or some other excuse to crack down on hackers.
.. um ... naughty websites ... nudge nudge wink wink ... you know ... than they are of hackers ganging up on website owners and demanding blackmail (which is already illegal and will already result in stiff jail terms).
My guess is that they're more worried about details of the Iraq misadventure will be found by activist hackers, or Members of the House of Lords or House of Commons visits to
too bad that the 360 is third place there, but I still think the few 360 owners in Japan will really take to this game, and having it made by RockStar will make it naughty enough that people will check it out.
...
Now if I could just unlock that secret table tennis scene in the game
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfat her anonymously published a series of letters in the Maryland Gazette in the 1770s arguing against the royal governor. Those letters helped galvanize public opinion in Maryland for independence and against England. I doubt the royal authorities would have let him go on had he signed his own name to them.
...
Interesting. I for one am glad my one of my great-...-uncles managed to keep quiet about the fact he rented the horse that Mr. Booth rode away on from his "performance" in a play viewed by Lincoln. They lynched anyone who was even under suspicion of being involved, without trial, at the time. Which teaches one never to rent to actors, they're flight risks
It's easy to stand up for rights when they're unquestioned. It's a lot harder to stand up for them when they are questioned, and that's when you need them.
Because, as we all know, having really cool games that are fun to play is less important than having 200 versions of football games which simulate raindrops spattering off the helmets of the football players and audio surround-sound of their breathing.
... now if I could only find the sarcasm key on my keyboard ...
After all, it's always true that following the true path:
1. make FPS or Sport Game with little or no story line
2. put it on a console that you lose money on
3. expect people to buy lots of games, like say Final Fantasy I to XII.
4. Profit!
and some kept harping on and on about monorails ;)
I think you mean buggy whips.
Why anyone would want to whip a bug is beyond me, though.
My guess is they'd think their fight to gain rights, in far worse circumstances, had become weakened by the very same people they'd left other nations to avoid but who now were mainstream America.
and look forward to discussing Curling, Beer, and Hockey with them.
If the readers of say, PC Gamer (in the US) were to be polled with the same question, their list would likely be dominated by FPSes and strategy games, probably ignoring less "hardcore" games like The Sims. Likewise, if you were to survey the readers of a European Nintendo mag, they'd probably favor Nintendo games over any others.
Well, I've got the Sims (PC, many add-ons), Sims (GameCube), Sims: The Urbz (GameCube), Sims 2(PC, many add-ons), Sims 2 (xBox) and I don't think I've ever even seen a magazine that would follow them, nor would I necessarily buy one for that kind of info.
Good points.
This isn't a case of ballot stuffing; it's just a matter of demographics... the people who read Famitsu tend to favor traditional, Japanese RPGs. In reality, there are Yu-Gi-Oh games that have outsold some of those top-ranking FF titles, so clearly this list isn't a very accurate representation of game popularity.
I thought so, I remember the Konami investors meeting they talked about ranking of games, and Yu-Gi-Oh games were much more highly ranked, as were Animal Crossing. Hence my response.
I've nothing against the titles listed, I think FF and other genres are quite respectable, even if I haven't played most of them.