Well, Bioshock isn't supposed to be so much about the creepy. Similarly, Resident Evil 4 was much less creepy than any of the previous installments, but its still arguably the best. Bioshock is about the style, and the atmosphere in general. Whether or not it's creepy shouldn't be an issue, because the atmosphere is perfect as it is.
It's got a similar style to Fallout... and Fallout never had any intention of being creepy.
Re:Bull. Controllers are good enough.
on
BioShock Review
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Whatever you do, don't ever play Metroid Prime 3...
Because after having played a refined Wii/Nunchuck system, you'll NEVER want to go back. I was so incredibly skeptical of the control scheme before I played, that I actually started writing out my own control setup, in hopes to send it out to developers. After having played MP3, though, I've completely abandoned it. It's litterally better than a keyboard/mouse... I didn't think I'd ever say that. I'm really reluctant to buy any FPSs for systems other than the Wii, now.
Only because that's how Americans WANT it. In Japan, 'eroge' (erotic games) are extremely popular, and run from plotless, pointless animated pornography to absolutely epic (and often well-written) storylines that occasionally have graphic sexuality, but take longer to read through than a full length novel.
Obviously, Japanese men take a lot longer to get it up.
I'm sick of people badmouthing franchises. In other genres, franchises are completely embraced. A game series is about as relivant as a band's discography. Because that's really what it is. When the core Square/Enix Final Fantasy Team come together (and yes, most of the core people stay the same for quite a few titles), it's no different than They Might Be Giants, or Rush, or whoever, coming out with their latest album. Many game franchises aren't even series, and even when they are, they're likely to be just as fresh and creative as the next standalone game.
I mean, did people mope when PG Woodhouse, Agatha Christy, or JR Tolkien came out with their latest Wooster & Geaves, Perot, and Lord of the Rings novels? No. Why do games have a double standard. Movies have fucked franchises, yes, but that doesn't say that all series and franchises are bad.
Ya know, I think they'll keep a touchless version of the Nano around, simply because they're slightly more automatic and simpler to operate on the fly. People usually want really really bear-bones stuff if they're running. As good as touch screen interfaces are, when you're sweaty and running, you just want to hit a button.
Eh... I said the same thing when touch wheel interfaces came in. Maybe I'll be wrong.
160GB of storage? WTF?! I bought a 60GB iPod about 18 months ago. I've got two seasons of LOST, my entire music collection (300+ albums), about 10 feature films, and my entire portfolio of TV advertisements, and I'm still only up to about 45GB. I thought 80GB was unneccessarry (probably simply because 80Gig drives might be cheaper than 60s). But 160Gigs is just silly. Nere, in 2007, a portable device made strictly for playing music/movies, has no need for 80Gigs. I don't think I've ever met someone who was running out of storage on an 80Gig.
My feelings are a bit mixed about the rest. The new Nano looks like shit. I'm sorry, but it does. I think the Nano caught a lot of people's attention because it was sleek with a lot of clean lines/edges. This one looks more like an obese 8-year-old.
Also, the decision to use solid-state for the iPod Touch probably wasn't the greatest. If I get an iPod Touch, its largely to watch movies and do multi-media. THAT'S the one where 160GBs might actually be useful.
Seriously, it's like selling an Apple IIe with 120GB drive, and then selling a MacPro with a 10MB drive. I think they've got their priorities a little confused.
Haha! Cynical as hell, but very true. Libertarians often hail themselves as "scietists" of political and ecconomic theory. But great creations are made by scientists and artists alike. Unfortunately, art takes a great bit more intelligence and self-awareness to be able to interpret.
Libertarians can keep their ideas of being the scientists of politics. But I'm not sure that it's as simple as that. Government requires scientists, artists, philosophers, and theologens, all working together.
Well, it may not be flamebait, but it's sure as hell "loaded". I think most people think of "loaded" as being one form of flamebait, and I think that's justifiable.
Bottom line is, you're only going to see this as a completely unloaded question if you completely agree with the premise. Many of us don't.
Do I think that more nerds are libertarians than the rest of society? Yes. But I think there are more Liberals, Conservatives, Neocons, socialists, and fascists than the rest of society too. The bottom line is that nerds tend to be more political than mainstream society.
That's funny, since Stalin, himself, really had no real political ideology. He would simply change his ideology to fit whatever he thought benefited him at the time. He was the complete opposite of a communist (and was hated by most marxists)... basically like a fascist posing as a communist. But he would embrace communism when it benefited him.
So, if by "stalinists" you mean fascists, then I can understand. But do NOT confuse Stalinism with Communism, the two are almost complete opposites.
Well, except that the constituion wasn't a manual, the founding fathers said themselves that it was there to be interpreted and modified freely. That's one of the fundimental principals behind it, one that most Libertarians seem to conveniently sweep under the rug.
It's no different from fundies talking about how their interpretation of the Bible is the only one. For any text, there are a million different interpretations, and they're all equally as reliavent. Before you go into an arguement about them, you MUST come to terms with them.
Funny thing is that "human nature" is as complicated as any other form of rationelle. Compassion is a form of human nature, and at least one form of Libertarianism, Objectivism, completely denounces that side, outright.
Every human has a different human nature. Saying that you're philosophy is based on human nature is about as arrogent as it comes.
The Advanced controls seem ludicrus for me. There's no null zone, so it's impossible to keep the screen still. I started to get a headache after playing it for just a little while. I put it back on Standard, and it's feeling a lot better now, I find I can aim and turn a lot more precisely on Standard.
My only huge complaint is that the crosshairs are often impossible to see against many of the backgrounds.
Unfortunately, for every system sellers that the PS3 has, the Wii has 2, and the 360 seems to have 3, (although I still think the Wii will win-out in the longrun).
As for Metroid Prime 3? I'll be interested to see the sales of that title. I'm playing it now, and I'm LOVING it. It's probably not quite as amazing as the original, but it's worlds better than Echoes, and it gives me a great sense of awe and wonder that I really missed from that title.
However, I don't see Metroid as being much of a system seller. It's sales pale in comparison to titles like Halo, Smash, GTA, or even Mario and Zelda. However, being the first serious title since Twilight Princess, MP3 may very well bring a lot of people on board. The FPS crowd is really going to love the control scheme. Being more of an adventure game fan, myself, I'm not sure I really care for the new control scheme all that much, but Halo fans are going to utterly worship it. If Nintendo had Wiis to sell, they'd probably sell quite a few now, seeing as this is the first of 3 AAA Nintendo titles coming out in the next 4 months.
I can sorta understand what you're saying. But I don't think it's "hardware" that you're talking about, so much as an overall strategy. And I agree, it was one of the best campaigns (marketing along with infrastructure and hardware development) in the history of gaming. But strictly in the hardware sense, it's really hard to make a case for the PS2s superiority.
If you want to talk about the cheapest hardware, the GCN was MUCH cheaper to manufacture (and the price reflected it). In power and graphical prowess, both the GCN and the XBox were superior in every way. Even the claim of having more polygons than the GCN has since been proven false... and don't even start on the subject of lighting and texture management.
Nintendo's biggest problem with the GCN was actually the N64. Consoles sales are often dictated, largely, by how popular the previous system was. The N64 made a lot of enemies, with Nintendo alienating 3rd parties left and right, and Sony offering an overall much better game plan. The GCN, however, was actually quite a good system, and I think that's reflected in how well the Wii is doing: GCN may have not sold many units, but it put Nintendo back on the map in terms of being a great gaming company that weren't out to asshole 3rd parties. I think you can owe a lot of the Wii's success to the reception of the GCN. Few people hate the GCN... it's a pretty well-liked system, even though it did sell very well.
The XBox simply brought over the PC gaming crowd, which was most of its fanbase. Microsoft was very successfull in doing this, and was able to practically tie Nintendo for 2nd place, worldwide, and set itself up for a strong 1st or 2nd place in the next generation.
In actuality, last gen was a great generation for all three companies, in different ways. For Sony, it made them a lot of money, and allowed them to release great titles that kept people buying their products. For Nintendo and Microsoft, it ensured their success in the next generation.
Too bad Sony so royally fucked up this gen, huh? We won't be seeing another PS2 for A LONG TIME. Oh well, it's probably better to have a more even race. Head-to-head competition often brings out the best in an industry.
Ahhh, that's right. At the time, I had a PC (I'm back to Mac now), so I was in the clear. Eventually, I've heard that Mac PS1 and N64 emulation became better than PC emulation... though I haven't needed to try it out, now that I own a PS2 and Wii.
FF8 didn't need emulation. It had a PC version that worked great (except for some minor synthesizer differences). I can still remember... it was one of the first RPGs I ever played (I didn't start gaming until I was in college). Now FF9 required emulation... and emulate it did, perfectly.
I didn't buy a PS2 until I wanted to play FFX... and boy what a lame excuse for buying a console THAT was! Oh well, about 20 titles later, it was worth it.
I agree, but not because of the lineup issue. Compared to the Wii and 360s (especially) upcoming exclusive lineup, the PS3 is the runt. Sony won't cut the price, because they simply can't afford to. They're already losing $300 on a console.
Let's face it, cutting back from $600 to $500 isn't going to move a hell of a lot more units. It's still too fucking much. It's only selling to people where money is no object... and for them, they're going to buy it at $500 or $600, so why drop the price?
- Hardly anyone thinks of the Unreal franchise outside of being a PC series - Not being the huge name it was 5 years ago - Having about 8 other huge FPS and FPA/S (aka: Metroid or Bioshock) games to compete with - Everyone would would buy a PS3 already having a PC that can also run it... better
I don't think Unreal Tournament is going to be a "console selling title".
...and then you have Microsoft sitting there going "You are both fuckin nuts, we did that shit 8 years ago on the PC....it's not that great"
Wait... what? Since when did Microsoft do a IR/motion sensor controller for big name titles on the PC... in fact, what games did Microsoft make for the PC 8 years ago? A few... like Mech Warrior, and some others that they bought from other companies. Nope, sorry, doesn't ring any bells...
Well, Nintendo's NEVER been one without polish. I don't think I've ever played a Nintendo game that didn't feel utterly polished to a shine. Even other companies games seem to be more polished on Nintendo consoles. Just look at Tales of Symphonia (GCN) next to Tales of the Abyss (PS2), for christ sake, and the latter was released almost 3 years later. I think hardware anti-aliasing was part of it, for the GameCube, but it's more than that. I think Nintendo does a certain amount of quality control, along with providing developers with ways in which to produce cleaner games. I have no proof of this, but it sure feels like it.
Audiophiles piss me off. Because they forget about 90% of what ACTUALLY makes up audio quality... which is the quality of the mix. Things like data compression are really far down the line when you compare it to balance, spacialization (including reverb), EQ, compression/limiting... and most importantly, the quality of the recording (mic placement, instrument tone, etc).
You hear so many people complaining about how the music industry is going to shit because they're promoting lossy audio, when you hardly EVER hear people complaining about how much the dynamic range has been destroyed in the last decade by limiters/compression (dynamic compression).
So yeah, I DO care about audio quality, and it's precisely why I don't care much about lossy compression... because people need to pay attention to more important things. It just ticks me off when I spend days on a mix, and people seem to care more about what file extensions are.
But none of those is close to the sales of Mario and Smash... and probably not even Metroid. Currently, Smash is the second best selling franchise behind Halo, and Mario isn't that far off either.
On the 360 you also have BioShock (which is turning out to be huge), Mass Effect, and a number of others. Fact is, the 360 and the Wii have some HUGE titles coming out this year, the PS3 has some medium-sized titles, and a bunch of no-names. And the PS3 is already far behind. Meanwhile, FF13 sounds like it's going to be over a year away, and there's very little word on MGS4. Things aren't looking good for Sony.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Bioshock isn't supposed to be so much about the creepy. Similarly, Resident Evil 4 was much less creepy than any of the previous installments, but its still arguably the best. Bioshock is about the style, and the atmosphere in general. Whether or not it's creepy shouldn't be an issue, because the atmosphere is perfect as it is.
It's got a similar style to Fallout... and Fallout never had any intention of being creepy.
Whatever you do, don't ever play Metroid Prime 3...
Because after having played a refined Wii/Nunchuck system, you'll NEVER want to go back. I was so incredibly skeptical of the control scheme before I played, that I actually started writing out my own control setup, in hopes to send it out to developers. After having played MP3, though, I've completely abandoned it. It's litterally better than a keyboard/mouse... I didn't think I'd ever say that. I'm really reluctant to buy any FPSs for systems other than the Wii, now.
I'm sick of people badmouthing franchises. In other genres, franchises are completely embraced. A game series is about as relivant as a band's discography. Because that's really what it is. When the core Square/Enix Final Fantasy Team come together (and yes, most of the core people stay the same for quite a few titles), it's no different than They Might Be Giants, or Rush, or whoever, coming out with their latest album. Many game franchises aren't even series, and even when they are, they're likely to be just as fresh and creative as the next standalone game.
I mean, did people mope when PG Woodhouse, Agatha Christy, or JR Tolkien came out with their latest Wooster & Geaves, Perot, and Lord of the Rings novels? No. Why do games have a double standard. Movies have fucked franchises, yes, but that doesn't say that all series and franchises are bad.
Ya know, I think they'll keep a touchless version of the Nano around, simply because they're slightly more automatic and simpler to operate on the fly. People usually want really really bear-bones stuff if they're running. As good as touch screen interfaces are, when you're sweaty and running, you just want to hit a button.
Eh... I said the same thing when touch wheel interfaces came in. Maybe I'll be wrong.
1... 2... 3...
O-VER-KILL!
160GB of storage? WTF?! I bought a 60GB iPod about 18 months ago. I've got two seasons of LOST, my entire music collection (300+ albums), about 10 feature films, and my entire portfolio of TV advertisements, and I'm still only up to about 45GB. I thought 80GB was unneccessarry (probably simply because 80Gig drives might be cheaper than 60s). But 160Gigs is just silly. Nere, in 2007, a portable device made strictly for playing music/movies, has no need for 80Gigs. I don't think I've ever met someone who was running out of storage on an 80Gig.
My feelings are a bit mixed about the rest. The new Nano looks like shit. I'm sorry, but it does. I think the Nano caught a lot of people's attention because it was sleek with a lot of clean lines/edges. This one looks more like an obese 8-year-old.
Also, the decision to use solid-state for the iPod Touch probably wasn't the greatest. If I get an iPod Touch, its largely to watch movies and do multi-media. THAT'S the one where 160GBs might actually be useful.
Seriously, it's like selling an Apple IIe with 120GB drive, and then selling a MacPro with a 10MB drive. I think they've got their priorities a little confused.
Haha! Cynical as hell, but very true. Libertarians often hail themselves as "scietists" of political and ecconomic theory. But great creations are made by scientists and artists alike. Unfortunately, art takes a great bit more intelligence and self-awareness to be able to interpret.
Libertarians can keep their ideas of being the scientists of politics. But I'm not sure that it's as simple as that. Government requires scientists, artists, philosophers, and theologens, all working together.
Well, it may not be flamebait, but it's sure as hell "loaded". I think most people think of "loaded" as being one form of flamebait, and I think that's justifiable.
Bottom line is, you're only going to see this as a completely unloaded question if you completely agree with the premise. Many of us don't.
Do I think that more nerds are libertarians than the rest of society? Yes. But I think there are more Liberals, Conservatives, Neocons, socialists, and fascists than the rest of society too. The bottom line is that nerds tend to be more political than mainstream society.
That's funny, since Stalin, himself, really had no real political ideology. He would simply change his ideology to fit whatever he thought benefited him at the time. He was the complete opposite of a communist (and was hated by most marxists)... basically like a fascist posing as a communist. But he would embrace communism when it benefited him.
So, if by "stalinists" you mean fascists, then I can understand. But do NOT confuse Stalinism with Communism, the two are almost complete opposites.
Well, except that the constituion wasn't a manual, the founding fathers said themselves that it was there to be interpreted and modified freely. That's one of the fundimental principals behind it, one that most Libertarians seem to conveniently sweep under the rug.
It's no different from fundies talking about how their interpretation of the Bible is the only one. For any text, there are a million different interpretations, and they're all equally as reliavent. Before you go into an arguement about them, you MUST come to terms with them.
Funny thing is that "human nature" is as complicated as any other form of rationelle. Compassion is a form of human nature, and at least one form of Libertarianism, Objectivism, completely denounces that side, outright.
Every human has a different human nature. Saying that you're philosophy is based on human nature is about as arrogent as it comes.
Empty freedom is just another form of bondage.
The Advanced controls seem ludicrus for me. There's no null zone, so it's impossible to keep the screen still. I started to get a headache after playing it for just a little while. I put it back on Standard, and it's feeling a lot better now, I find I can aim and turn a lot more precisely on Standard.
My only huge complaint is that the crosshairs are often impossible to see against many of the backgrounds.
Unfortunately, for every system sellers that the PS3 has, the Wii has 2, and the 360 seems to have 3, (although I still think the Wii will win-out in the longrun).
As for Metroid Prime 3? I'll be interested to see the sales of that title. I'm playing it now, and I'm LOVING it. It's probably not quite as amazing as the original, but it's worlds better than Echoes, and it gives me a great sense of awe and wonder that I really missed from that title.
However, I don't see Metroid as being much of a system seller. It's sales pale in comparison to titles like Halo, Smash, GTA, or even Mario and Zelda. However, being the first serious title since Twilight Princess, MP3 may very well bring a lot of people on board. The FPS crowd is really going to love the control scheme. Being more of an adventure game fan, myself, I'm not sure I really care for the new control scheme all that much, but Halo fans are going to utterly worship it. If Nintendo had Wiis to sell, they'd probably sell quite a few now, seeing as this is the first of 3 AAA Nintendo titles coming out in the next 4 months.
I can sorta understand what you're saying. But I don't think it's "hardware" that you're talking about, so much as an overall strategy. And I agree, it was one of the best campaigns (marketing along with infrastructure and hardware development) in the history of gaming. But strictly in the hardware sense, it's really hard to make a case for the PS2s superiority.
If you want to talk about the cheapest hardware, the GCN was MUCH cheaper to manufacture (and the price reflected it). In power and graphical prowess, both the GCN and the XBox were superior in every way. Even the claim of having more polygons than the GCN has since been proven false... and don't even start on the subject of lighting and texture management.
Nintendo's biggest problem with the GCN was actually the N64. Consoles sales are often dictated, largely, by how popular the previous system was. The N64 made a lot of enemies, with Nintendo alienating 3rd parties left and right, and Sony offering an overall much better game plan. The GCN, however, was actually quite a good system, and I think that's reflected in how well the Wii is doing: GCN may have not sold many units, but it put Nintendo back on the map in terms of being a great gaming company that weren't out to asshole 3rd parties. I think you can owe a lot of the Wii's success to the reception of the GCN. Few people hate the GCN... it's a pretty well-liked system, even though it did sell very well.
The XBox simply brought over the PC gaming crowd, which was most of its fanbase. Microsoft was very successfull in doing this, and was able to practically tie Nintendo for 2nd place, worldwide, and set itself up for a strong 1st or 2nd place in the next generation.
In actuality, last gen was a great generation for all three companies, in different ways. For Sony, it made them a lot of money, and allowed them to release great titles that kept people buying their products. For Nintendo and Microsoft, it ensured their success in the next generation.
Too bad Sony so royally fucked up this gen, huh? We won't be seeing another PS2 for A LONG TIME. Oh well, it's probably better to have a more even race. Head-to-head competition often brings out the best in an industry.
Ahhh, that's right. At the time, I had a PC (I'm back to Mac now), so I was in the clear. Eventually, I've heard that Mac PS1 and N64 emulation became better than PC emulation... though I haven't needed to try it out, now that I own a PS2 and Wii.
Anyway, yeah, that makes sense.
Just a comment...
FF8 didn't need emulation. It had a PC version that worked great (except for some minor synthesizer differences). I can still remember... it was one of the first RPGs I ever played (I didn't start gaming until I was in college). Now FF9 required emulation... and emulate it did, perfectly.
I didn't buy a PS2 until I wanted to play FFX... and boy what a lame excuse for buying a console THAT was! Oh well, about 20 titles later, it was worth it.
Okay... what?
HW... Homework? Heavy Wieners? Hillbilly Wraiths?
Wait, what was the PS2 the king of, last generation?
I agree, but not because of the lineup issue. Compared to the Wii and 360s (especially) upcoming exclusive lineup, the PS3 is the runt. Sony won't cut the price, because they simply can't afford to. They're already losing $300 on a console.
Let's face it, cutting back from $600 to $500 isn't going to move a hell of a lot more units. It's still too fucking much. It's only selling to people where money is no object... and for them, they're going to buy it at $500 or $600, so why drop the price?
Seeing that:
- Hardly anyone thinks of the Unreal franchise outside of being a PC series
- Not being the huge name it was 5 years ago
- Having about 8 other huge FPS and FPA/S (aka: Metroid or Bioshock) games to compete with
- Everyone would would buy a PS3 already having a PC that can also run it... better
I don't think Unreal Tournament is going to be a "console selling title".
Well, Nintendo's NEVER been one without polish. I don't think I've ever played a Nintendo game that didn't feel utterly polished to a shine. Even other companies games seem to be more polished on Nintendo consoles. Just look at Tales of Symphonia (GCN) next to Tales of the Abyss (PS2), for christ sake, and the latter was released almost 3 years later. I think hardware anti-aliasing was part of it, for the GameCube, but it's more than that. I think Nintendo does a certain amount of quality control, along with providing developers with ways in which to produce cleaner games. I have no proof of this, but it sure feels like it.
Audiophiles piss me off. Because they forget about 90% of what ACTUALLY makes up audio quality... which is the quality of the mix. Things like data compression are really far down the line when you compare it to balance, spacialization (including reverb), EQ, compression/limiting... and most importantly, the quality of the recording (mic placement, instrument tone, etc).
You hear so many people complaining about how the music industry is going to shit because they're promoting lossy audio, when you hardly EVER hear people complaining about how much the dynamic range has been destroyed in the last decade by limiters/compression (dynamic compression).
So yeah, I DO care about audio quality, and it's precisely why I don't care much about lossy compression... because people need to pay attention to more important things. It just ticks me off when I spend days on a mix, and people seem to care more about what file extensions are.
But none of those is close to the sales of Mario and Smash... and probably not even Metroid. Currently, Smash is the second best selling franchise behind Halo, and Mario isn't that far off either.
On the 360 you also have BioShock (which is turning out to be huge), Mass Effect, and a number of others. Fact is, the 360 and the Wii have some HUGE titles coming out this year, the PS3 has some medium-sized titles, and a bunch of no-names. And the PS3 is already far behind. Meanwhile, FF13 sounds like it's going to be over a year away, and there's very little word on MGS4. Things aren't looking good for Sony.