You forgot three others: System Shock 1 & 2 and Eternal Darkness. The first two told their story as you played, through logs and emails and general creepiness as Shodan addressed you directly (aside from opening and ending and death and a smattering of random cutscenes). Telling a story that way was good.
ED simply had cool story, the most of which was told through in-game cutscenes. Telling a story that way is good too.
The point is that it's easier to just tell the story and hope it'll entrance the players oppose to telling a GOOD story.
Maybe they should cut back on the time spent making and texturing bajillion polygon models.
What's more realistic? Viewing areas surpassing human abilities or simulating your head with a mouse?
And bringing up controllers vs keyboard+mouse is ridiculous as we're talking about computer gaming. Computers come with a mouse and keyboard, not controllers. PC games will be tailored to mouse+keyboard combos and console games will be tailored to their respective controller.
I had a friend over (a big PC gamer fiend, not friend, fiend) and all I really have is my Gamecube. But I got Timesplitters 2! So we start a co-op and while we're both struggling to remember/figure out the controls I ended up in the minigame menu after which we played many a 2 player snake (Anaconda as they call it) games.
As this was covered quite in depth in Scientific American article Holes in the Missile Shield. To sum it up, all possible counter measures are shockingly cheap compared to the infrastructure and technology needed to defeat them.
Oh the woes for the parents who bought the murder and theft sim! It has crudely animated sex scenes that you have to search for and download modifications for the game to EVEN SEE! OH TEH NO! WOE IS THEM! WAH WAH FUCKING WAH.
You know, never mind it's already rated M for motherfucking Mature!
-How many times do you see in a public place the aspect ratio screwed up on one of those plasma displays?
I hate that so freaking much. My friend's stepdad has a huge 40+ inch widescreen LCD TV that is always horribly stretched out and often just showing your standard regular def fare. I always comment on it and they never do ANYTHING. I just want to strangle them.
First off, what kind of ads are we talking about? McBurger Kongs in Red Alert 2? You know, in modern CITIES. Or little "Sponsored by" ads in the corners, loading screens, startup screens? Maybe "special" items (I know Gunbound did this recently).
Second, if, say, it's a single player game, would players be forced to download updates or be connected to the internet to get new ads or send play times?
Waitwaitwait, why am I even asking these kind of questions? Must yet another aspect of my life be penetrated (pun intended) by annoying advertising of products I DON'T. FUCKING. WANT?
Here I am, typing away on a website for free. It costs money (but not mine) so ads are expected. On the TV I'm watching cable. Which is payed for. With money-you-can-buy-burritos-with. WHY THE FUCK AM I BEING ASSAULTED WITH ADVERTISING FOR SOMETHING I (someone) PAID FOR? Why the fuck is advertising in games that will be sold even being considered as a viable option?
If you don't have the resources to hire bigwig Hollywood monkeys to write, act, or talk in your game or to make 2048x2048 textures, 30k polygon meshes, or super duper nice animations, then maybe the developers need to get out of this graphic whore rut and think about making nice graphics but not necessarily the kind you need uber-1337 computers to get a decent FPS out of. There's not a damn thing wrong with only "decent" graphics esspecially if it means you have a larger user base that can actually run your game and if it means you can spend more time refining the gameplay.
Hell, you might get games that are better than the competitions', that are funner and rate better, and that have a larger possible player base.
It's bad enough that 15 minutes on TV is ads, that newspapers get thicker over the week because more ads are jammed in, that magizines are chunked up with thick cardboard subscription cards and at least some 20-30% is ads, that sports stadiums, player jerseys, fields and rinks are all fucking plastered with ads (and nevermind all the other fucking ads during the game), that radio... internet... ads, ADS, ADS, AND MORE FUCKING ADS. YOUR FUCKING SHIT IS NOT SELLING BECAUSE IT IS FUCKING WORTHLESS. FUCKING STOP FOR THE MOTHER FUCKING LOVE OF FUCK.
Hmm. I will gleefully concide the point if you can #1 save favorites and #2 save compliations.
To clarify #1, if you could flag a song as a menu song or a pause song or a level specific song and it would play each time without having to manually change it again despite power downs, resets, whatever, that would be awesome.
To clarify #2, if MS said do developers that songs had to be uniform so you could load song compliation from game B into game A with menu, generic level, pause, submenu, etc. songs going where they should, THAT would be awesome.
I actually did this with Crimsonland and music from UT2k4 although changing the menu songs required replacing them, level songs needed to be typed in manually in a.txt file. But if custom soundtracks is just on the level of say UT2k4's, sure you can prune, set it to random, but it's just not very elegant.
Photorealism is not innovation. If it is, Valve should be the one getting the credit for at least mimiccing how the human eye sees. All what MS is doing is throwing out some powerful hardware. It's still up to developers to make their games photorealistic.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot three others: System Shock 1 & 2 and Eternal Darkness. The first two told their story as you played, through logs and emails and general creepiness as Shodan addressed you directly (aside from opening and ending and death and a smattering of random cutscenes). Telling a story that way was good.
ED simply had cool story, the most of which was told through in-game cutscenes. Telling a story that way is good too.
The point is that it's easier to just tell the story and hope it'll entrance the players oppose to telling a GOOD story.
Maybe they should cut back on the time spent making and texturing bajillion polygon models.
What's more realistic? Viewing areas surpassing human abilities or simulating your head with a mouse?
And bringing up controllers vs keyboard+mouse is ridiculous as we're talking about computer gaming. Computers come with a mouse and keyboard, not controllers. PC games will be tailored to mouse+keyboard combos and console games will be tailored to their respective controller.
Indeed.
I had a friend over (a big PC gamer fiend, not friend, fiend) and all I really have is my Gamecube. But I got Timesplitters 2! So we start a co-op and while we're both struggling to remember/figure out the controls I ended up in the minigame menu after which we played many a 2 player snake (Anaconda as they call it) games.
270 degrees of view would be an unfair advantage.
Quite so. Who needs a patch when they got safe sources for porn?
As this was covered quite in depth in Scientific American article Holes in the Missile Shield . To sum it up, all possible counter measures are shockingly cheap compared to the infrastructure and technology needed to defeat them.
So really, we lose economically.
Even assuming 360s are sold for profit at their current price range, homebrew software is software MS didn't get money for.
Hence they don't it distracting gamers from more important things like Christmas outfits they can buy for game characters.
Replace 360 with PSP and MS with Sony and it's the same deal.
...but you get nothing? If there's any sort of limit on how many copies you can make, you'd best hope your computer never dies.
So let's see.... None of the usual DVD extras? One language? No hard copy? SAME PRICE?
Wow that's a bunch of ass.
Don't forget to wipe.
Is this even worth mentioning anymore?
Oh the woes for the parents who bought the murder and theft sim! It has crudely animated sex scenes that you have to search for and download modifications for the game to EVEN SEE! OH TEH NO! WOE IS THEM! WAH WAH FUCKING WAH.
You know, never mind it's already rated M for motherfucking Mature!
GAH! My head is going to implode.
What? Like the original was?
Why does Infinium Labs and the Phantom even get mentioned? Hell, even the Virtual Boy is less of a joke.
-How many times do you see in a public place the aspect ratio screwed up on one of those plasma displays?
I hate that so freaking much. My friend's stepdad has a huge 40+ inch widescreen LCD TV that is always horribly stretched out and often just showing your standard regular def fare. I always comment on it and they never do ANYTHING. I just want to strangle them.
Just remember, follow every "Dude, you got a Dell!" utterance with "It's made of shit and failure."
Sshhhhh. You'll wake up the IRS.
I'm sorry. You'd spend $3800 to get them ripped?
Shit man, I'd do it for $2000 and send you the copies on a harddrive and DVD-Rs.
I'm sorry but seriously, what the fuck?
This kind of topic, while useful on mindnumbingly chit-chat MSN headlines, should not be here. Ok?
Sure, I suppose someone has uses for it. The kind of people who buy individually wrapped cheese slices and ready-to-eat bacon but they are not here.
At least I hope not. That's right. GTFO.
I'm sorry. I just can't seem to get the point of your reply. Care to elaborate?
First off, what kind of ads are we talking about? McBurger Kongs in Red Alert 2? You know, in modern CITIES. Or little "Sponsored by" ads in the corners, loading screens, startup screens? Maybe "special" items (I know Gunbound did this recently).
Second, if, say, it's a single player game, would players be forced to download updates or be connected to the internet to get new ads or send play times?
Waitwaitwait, why am I even asking these kind of questions? Must yet another aspect of my life be penetrated (pun intended) by annoying advertising of products I DON'T. FUCKING. WANT?
Here I am, typing away on a website for free. It costs money (but not mine) so ads are expected. On the TV I'm watching cable. Which is payed for. With money-you-can-buy-burritos-with. WHY THE FUCK AM I BEING ASSAULTED WITH ADVERTISING FOR SOMETHING I (someone) PAID FOR? Why the fuck is advertising in games that will be sold even being considered as a viable option?
If you don't have the resources to hire bigwig Hollywood monkeys to write, act, or talk in your game or to make 2048x2048 textures, 30k polygon meshes, or super duper nice animations, then maybe the developers need to get out of this graphic whore rut and think about making nice graphics but not necessarily the kind you need uber-1337 computers to get a decent FPS out of. There's not a damn thing wrong with only "decent" graphics esspecially if it means you have a larger user base that can actually run your game and if it means you can spend more time refining the gameplay.
Hell, you might get games that are better than the competitions', that are funner and rate better, and that have a larger possible player base.
People still use Kazaa? The poor bastards....
It's bad enough that 15 minutes on TV is ads, that newspapers get thicker over the week because more ads are jammed in, that magizines are chunked up with thick cardboard subscription cards and at least some 20-30% is ads, that sports stadiums, player jerseys, fields and rinks are all fucking plastered with ads (and nevermind all the other fucking ads during the game), that radio... internet... ads, ADS, ADS, AND MORE FUCKING ADS. YOUR FUCKING SHIT IS NOT SELLING BECAUSE IT IS FUCKING WORTHLESS. FUCKING STOP FOR THE MOTHER FUCKING LOVE OF FUCK.
ARAGARHGAHGAGFGH
(Yes, I am feeling stabby. Why do you ask?)
A corporation actually managed to piss off Texas enough to take legal action? I mean, come on. It's Texas.
I'm just surprised one of the little puppy or some liberal states didn't act first.
(If they did, ignore the previous line plzkthx.
Low cost computers built of shit and AMD apparently.
Worse still, that Dell kid is gonna fag up AMD too.
Hmm. I will gleefully concide the point if you can #1 save favorites and #2 save compliations.
.txt file. But if custom soundtracks is just on the level of say UT2k4's, sure you can prune, set it to random, but it's just not very elegant.
To clarify #1, if you could flag a song as a menu song or a pause song or a level specific song and it would play each time without having to manually change it again despite power downs, resets, whatever, that would be awesome.
To clarify #2, if MS said do developers that songs had to be uniform so you could load song compliation from game B into game A with menu, generic level, pause, submenu, etc. songs going where they should, THAT would be awesome.
I actually did this with Crimsonland and music from UT2k4 although changing the menu songs required replacing them, level songs needed to be typed in manually in a
Photorealism is not innovation. If it is, Valve should be the one getting the credit for at least mimiccing how the human eye sees. All what MS is doing is throwing out some powerful hardware. It's still up to developers to make their games photorealistic.