They whine about freedom of expression, creativity, and being free to push the bounderies... but I don't buy it. All they've ever done is push ONE VERY SPECIFIC, and incredibly OBVIOUS social boundery. It's not original, creative, or anything of the sort. It's simply sensationalistic. If they REALLY were a creative company, one game would feature horrific violence, and the other would be an incrediblely innocent game, the next would be something completely different. But no, everything we've seen out of them at least has this looming undertone of mass violence. Even Bully (which I consider completely acceptable) could be defined as an alegory to criminal human nature. Why are Rockstar so intent on pushing the concept that humans are so evil? If they're trying to tell us some moral lesson, then they've done a VERY BAD JOB in getting it across.
This isn't about creativity, it's the opposite... it's chosing one really divisive topic and sticking with it, without any given reason, other than it being purely sensationalistic. Fuck em, as far as I'm concerned, I really fucking hate this kind of unthinking, lazy, sensationalism. I'm a very strong supporter of Civil Liberties, and that's actually WHY I'm so upset... it's companies like this that are almost TRYING to get limits put on our civil liberties.
No sense of class, no sense of taste, just pick the most divisive things you can think of, and make big $$$$. Why are Slashdotters so quick to put up with this line of thinking? Sure, maybe you can defend it on principal, but you have to admit that what Rockstar ARE is really against everything that slashdot stands for.
Fuck you. I have ADD, I've had to learn to live with it for the rest of my life. You have NO IDEA how difficult it is. So stop talking bullshit unless you have some damn good personal experience to back it up! ADD can be a completely detrimental dissorder. I had incredible parenting, and many caring third party adults that looked over me, and STILL I don't know where I'd be today without medication.
I'm deeply offended by those who seem to write it off as just "kid's being idiots"
This assessment couldn't possibly be farther than what I want to get out of gaming.
One theme tends to ring clear: INTERACTIVITY, INTERACTIVITY, INTERACTIVITY! And to that, I'm yelling back, STOP, STOP, STOP! It's difficult to up interactivity without in some ways destroying immersion. The more control the audience has over the environment, the less they're able to freely immerse themselves in it. I have no interest in creating an environment or a persona, I'd like to see what a great artist can come up with, and experience that... the same way I love listening to a great piece of music.
I love how their definition of RPG seems to be limited to the much smaller subset of American PC-style RPGs. That definition may be a realistic one, but it's pretty much moot for a good 75% of games that are considered "RPGs". So what if half the genre needs a new name, that's what they're called.
Also, I found the definition for "platform game" to be completely wrong, and over-complicated: A platform game is simply an adventure game in which the character's movements are key to progressing through the environment. A staple has been to have a plethora of floating and moving platforms... hence the genre name, "platform game". Some have unrealistic graphics... some don't. Many traditional adventure games have unrealistic and stylized graphics too... but I'm noone's going to call the latest Monkey Island a platform game. Action Adventure and Platformers are merging to the point of indistinguishability. Every action/adventure these days has platform elements, and platformers are fastly becoming epic and intriquite like their action/adventure counterparts. But it's not graphical style that dictates the traditional boundary.
Fuck that. No-one's denying the right for parents to not allow AO content. And what's worse is, parents are NOT taking responsibility these days, so someone has to. And lack of responsibility is not being caused by some kind of Nany-state scenario, it's a side effect of a deeper problem in our culture: laziness, we just tend to blame the government for it.
We have one of the least socially involved governments on the face of the planet, yet WE'RE the lazy ones. Maybe having a Nany-state would force people to wake up and realize that SOMEONE has to take responsibility for their actions.
No. Console makers do the whole "sales protection" thing regarding what games are released. Their motivation is not to police morality...
Sure it is, and I'm glad. If you haven't noticed, Nintendo has been very candid about how they feel videogames should play a role in our lives. Miyamoto, whose philosophical ideals make him about the equivalent, for video games, as Frank Zappa was for music, is basically at the heart of their message. They don't send him out to talk about his philosophy for nothing.
I have to dissagree. Maybe Sony and Microsoft have little ethical mission, but you can bet your ass Nintendo does. I happen to agree with them 100%, so I'm just going to cheer them on (I'm glad to see a company really have an overall "vision" the way they do), but I can understand that others might be pissed.
Bullshit. Monty Python blood is so incredibly satyrical that you can't possibly take it seriously. Mortal Kombat was possibly some of the most realistic graphics in a game, of its time. By today's standards, it looks silly, but back then, I remember my friends and I huddling around and thinking, "wow, those look like photographs of real people!" You don't see 13 year olds huddling around monty python going, "Woah, that's badass", they're more likely to just laugh at the absurdity of it all. I dunno if you were around back then, but MK was pretty "badass", not satyr.
The fact that it disturbs you, disturbs me. Who are you to say what I can play?
Woah, woah man... you are COMPLETELY missunderstanding my point. I'm not telling you what you can and can't play, I'm just concerned/disturbed by what you (or most people) seem to want to play. 10 years ago, the majority of people were not going to movie theaters hoping to see peoples heads get cut off in every other film, now, it's kind of status quo.
Eh? There's always going to be some example of someone pushing cultural boundries, and Manhunt is one of them, that and Gears of War are pretty much the only ones more violent than last gen. as far as I know.
Gears of War? I've seen it, how is it any worse than Crackdown, FEAR, Halo, GTA, and all the other games out there. Seriously, Gears of War is par for the course.
30 years ago, people were just as violent as they are today. 300 years ago. 3000 years ago. Only the techniques have changed.
I beg to differ. Just as many people DIED 30 years ago as today, but people didn't explicitly want to see it in their entertainment the way they do now. Culture, as a whole, has shifted.
I simply refuse to believe that the only reason why there wasn't as much violent content 10 years ago was due to the technology. The anti is constantly being upped... why? Because we're constantly "testing" ourselves to see if we can tolerate just A LITTLE MORE. I just think it's cheap, and mindless. I'd like to see people develop a sense of TASTE. I'm sick of all the
This is NOT simply a given, and part of human nature, ya know how I can tell? Because *my* opinion is living proof that it's not simply "human nature". Why am I like that? Because I seem to have been raised differently. Do I want everyone to have been raised like me? You bet your ass... but that would really suck for humanity. All I'm asking is that people learn to develop their own sense of taste... and I'm not seeing it. This isn't taste, this is simply scarfing down the equivalent of eye-fast food, because developing taste requires thought, and people are being fucking lazy.
It's fucking cultural, and our culture seems to enjoy it. FUCK US.
The real issue here, above and beyond the "do games make people violent?" question, is why are adult gamers demanding such violence? "Please consider the opinion of the adult gamer," sort of disturbs me, somehow. Why is the opinion of the adult gamer, consistantly, "we want more violence!"? 30 years ago, this level of violence was unthinkable. It's not the violence itself that I mind, it's the fascination with violence that really disgusts me.
When the topic first came up, and that pretty much started in the mainstream with Mortal Kombat, the defense was that it added realism and immersion. But to be honest, I never bought it. And that's becoming apparant now that we're going above and beyond realistic violence to DEMANDING that violence be much more prevolent than just an innocent desire to uphold "realism".
I think there's really two reasons for this:
1) We're not talking about adults here, we're talking 13-18 year olds. It's basically the job of teenagers to try to disgust their parents as much as possible, as a form of rebellion.
2) Culturally, males are being taught that they're basically immoral and unintelligent, and that the only way to prove your masculinity is to be the ultimate in those areas. "I want a beer, and I want to see something naked... that's all." When better way of establishing that identity by sitting and playing ultra-violent video games with no emotional tie-in? I've seen it, 15 year olds saying, "check this out, I can cut off his head" and then go up to some guy, and chop off his head while he's screaming in pain. It basically says, "I can do this, and I won't even feel remorseful about it, it doesn't bother me, because I'm a man."
So my theory is that violence is largely used as a means of establishing independance and gender identity. It's not the fault of video games, it's the fault of our culture for not having any possitive rolemodels to look up to. As a friend of mine likes to quote, "where have all the cowboys gone?"
On the contrary. The Godfather, as it is done, is specifically setup so that you're incredibly disgusted by the violence that takes place. It's so incredibly depressing to see Michael head down the path of nastiness, that you can't help but be revolted. In many ways, The Godfather is a poster child of how violence can be used, effectively, as a way of reinforcing how much violence really distroys humanity.
Scarface, on the flipside, is one that could be argued that makes you identify with the violence, at least for a time. By the end, you're disgusted by the path he's taken, but not neccessarilly because he's violent, but of who he aims his violence at.
I'm not completely anti-violence in film or games, it's all about HOW it is presented. If it is presented as mindless and fun, many times it's actually not so bad, really. In a James Bond movie, you don't really concentrate so much on how a person dies, or their suffering, in fact, it's goes almost completely unnoticed, it really doesn't have a strong negative or possitive impact on how a person percieves violence. On the other hand, you have movies like The Godfather, Munich, or Letters from Iwagima that force the audience to be saddened and repulsed by the violence being committed. The danger are films that are created so that the audience can rellish and take pleasure in the violent acts. Movies such as Hostile or Saw are the ones that we really should be the most concerned with.
Similarly, the way most people play GTA, Mortal Kombat, and probably Manhunt is a bit upsetting, and inline with the titilating portrayal of violence in the above suspense films.
I will agree that NAFTA was unforgivable corporate pandaring, and has DEVISTATED Mexico far past what it would have been. I will never forgive Clinton for that. But, aside from NAFTA, I think his presidency, overall, was pretty positive, especially considering other presidents in recent years.
How do you get off making the claim that Clinton was evil and that Nixon wasn't? Seriously, I know it's cliche to quote Watergate, but breaking and entering is fucking evil, in of itself. And I don't buy the "but all politicians do it, he just got caught" arguement... bullshit, he was much more brutal in his efforts to cover his tracks than anyone in the past century, except for probably Bush II. Ford wasn't evil, I'll give you that. But Carter was a fucking saint... unfortunately, saints don't make for good administrators.
Would you blame a guy for inciting another to violence? The problem with these games is that there is evidence that they negatively influence us. Further, unlike a film, which is abd enough, we are personally engaged in acting out the fantasy.
I'm actually all for cutting back on violence in video games, and limitting children's access to certian titles. BUT, "personally engaged in acting out the fantasy", I don't believe that this is any more harmfull than movies. There are some possitive aspects of acting out ones fantasies, even if they're violent ones. Sitting back and ALLOWING violence to take place may very well be even more harmful. I really don't think we have the evidence to back up a claim that video games are more harmful than movies.
Then again, I'm very saddened by trends towards ultra-violence, simply because of their social and cultural implications. I think males, especially, are being told that it's simply "part of their nature" to enjoy these kinds of things... what happened to the heroic, positive male role model? Chivilry was good and alive just decades ago. Now, we have "Everyone Loves Raymond" which teaches us that men are supposed to be insensitive, unintelligent slobs with no sense of moral judgement.
I think "Everyone Loves Raymond" and similar programming is much more detrimental to society than Manhunt will ever be.
The rich continue to get richer, the poor continue to get poorer, and the majority in the middle continue to get screwed by both.
Actually, this has only been true for the last 6 years. The income gap closed significantly during the Clinton administration. If the public are accepting this as just an innevitability, then we REALLY have a problem on our hands!
Well, I've discussed, at length, with quite a few friends who carefully explain what they feel is the real meat of the series. They're all pretty intelligent, and I tend to see where they're coming from, and considering they seem to have a similar story to tell, I think I've got a pretty good picture of what they're talking about.
"If the next Zelda is half as good as Max Payne 2 was, we should have something special, indeed."
FALLOUT ISN'T OBLIVION!!! When are people going to get it into their heads??? The two series are not only completely different, they're meant to appeal to completely different aesthetics. Ya know, it's sorta along the lines of Final Fantasy pandering to jock gamers, or Resident Evil pandering to young casual gamers.
It's good to have different series that are DIFFERENT, because everyone gets something that they like. Sure, it's good to branch out and expand your audience, but not if it completely disregards the fundimentals of the series.
I, myself, am not a Fallout fan, I've never actually played a Fallout game, but I've seen them quite a bit, and I'm interested in picking one up at some point. And even *I* can recognize the huge gaping gorge that is the difference between Fallout and Oblivion.
Things that will make Fallout suck, by default: - First Person [check] - Real-Time [check] - FPS elements [check]
I have a nice 19" Samsung HDTV that I bought a few months back, and to double as a computer monitor. Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can afford something like a 37" HDTV. Hell, I paid a good $440 for mine, and that was probably more than I should have. Anyway, it is true HD, though it doesn't have an HD tuner (which is fine, since I can't get TV reception in my cabin anyway).
Now, I am interested in the rescaling of PS2 games on the PS3, but from what I've understood is that there's no smoothing going on (except for maybe 2D graphics), but just model resizing. If there's some anti-aliasing going on, that would be great, but I haven't heard anything to that extent.
Agreed, this is the whole reason why I use Firefox with a Safari theme. I love Safari's interface, but the lack of programming searches into the url field... no Safari for me. Well, that and Firefox's "Find-by-typing" feature, which is just awesome.
I've heard that there are 3rd party plugins for Safari which can add these things though. I don't have internet at home currently, but I'll look into it as soon as I do.
Note that most of the "crunch" does NOT come from coding, but from the artists/designers. Games, these days, are about 90% art/design, and 10% coding.
And sure game design can counter 10x difference in power. In the opinion of myself, and most people who have played it, Okami is one of the greatest looking games ever made. That was a PS2 game. The graphical "trick" in this case, was coming up with a style that was so wonderful, in it's own right, that it completely overcame a lack of horsepower.
Do just that... it's not a lot to ask. One thing Nintendo is looking for is seriousness and longevity. Are you going to turn around and burn them, and your fan base, by not delivering? That's just bad for the industry. Of course, having put out ONE PC game is not a great judge, but it's a start, and it's not a lot to ask, either.
It's really the only way to avoid what happened in the early 80s. We went through it, and it sucked, and the industry almost died and rotted with bad designers who poisoned the whole field. It's not good for the whole medium to have a lot of badly designed, or ill-concieved games. If it were to open up, there'd be thousands of fly-by-night developer houses who would clog the system with uncreative clones, no design sense, and just overall bad games.
If you're truly a proponant of increasing the quality of games, you're going to have to be serious about both the creative and business end of things. If anything, I applaud Nintendo on requiring this of people. The bottom line is, I want gaming to become better and more sophisticated, and if that means keeping out the wannabe's, I'm all for it.
On the flip side, if someone were to present Nintendo with a very very interesting idea, worthy of exploration, even if they're too small an outfit to qualify, there's a good possibilty Nintendo will just hire them, directly, in order to have that kind of creative juice in their ranks. Why steal content, when you can buy pure creativity that continues to creative content? Nintendo seems to be more interested in that anyway.
The problem is, even "hardcore gamers", make up a small percentage of even the avid gamer crowd. I'm defining "hardcore gamers" as specifically the psychographic who is looking for violent, competative, fast-paced, complicated games. There's a whole lot of other gamers out there, however, who put just as much time, energy, and most importantly, MONEY, into it, who are not at all put off by the all-inclusive philosophy of the Wii. Myself, for instance; I see the Wii as being more inclusive of my aesthetic than the PS3 is... although the 360 is starting to branch out a bit.
Maybe microsoft is starting to realize that "hardcore gamers", while the most vocal (because they like to yell obscenities alot), may not actually speak all that loud with their $$$. The "gamer" population is a lot most complicated than just "hardcore gamers" and "everyone else".
I dunno if it's how much you play, but how much thought and energy you put into it. I think I'm more than just a hobbiest. I have plans to work in the field one day, and if not that, the media in general, so I'm soaking up gobbs of design principals, and analyzing what works and doesn't work. I enjoy games, but I also am a student of them, as well.
Slashdot Mirror
They whine about freedom of expression, creativity, and being free to push the bounderies... but I don't buy it. All they've ever done is push ONE VERY SPECIFIC, and incredibly OBVIOUS social boundery. It's not original, creative, or anything of the sort. It's simply sensationalistic. If they REALLY were a creative company, one game would feature horrific violence, and the other would be an incrediblely innocent game, the next would be something completely different. But no, everything we've seen out of them at least has this looming undertone of mass violence. Even Bully (which I consider completely acceptable) could be defined as an alegory to criminal human nature. Why are Rockstar so intent on pushing the concept that humans are so evil? If they're trying to tell us some moral lesson, then they've done a VERY BAD JOB in getting it across.
This isn't about creativity, it's the opposite... it's chosing one really divisive topic and sticking with it, without any given reason, other than it being purely sensationalistic. Fuck em, as far as I'm concerned, I really fucking hate this kind of unthinking, lazy, sensationalism. I'm a very strong supporter of Civil Liberties, and that's actually WHY I'm so upset... it's companies like this that are almost TRYING to get limits put on our civil liberties.
No sense of class, no sense of taste, just pick the most divisive things you can think of, and make big $$$$. Why are Slashdotters so quick to put up with this line of thinking? Sure, maybe you can defend it on principal, but you have to admit that what Rockstar ARE is really against everything that slashdot stands for.
Fuck you. I have ADD, I've had to learn to live with it for the rest of my life. You have NO IDEA how difficult it is. So stop talking bullshit unless you have some damn good personal experience to back it up! ADD can be a completely detrimental dissorder. I had incredible parenting, and many caring third party adults that looked over me, and STILL I don't know where I'd be today without medication.
I'm deeply offended by those who seem to write it off as just "kid's being idiots"
We'll just have to hire a bunch of migrant robot repairmen!
This assessment couldn't possibly be farther than what I want to get out of gaming.
One theme tends to ring clear: INTERACTIVITY, INTERACTIVITY, INTERACTIVITY! And to that, I'm yelling back, STOP, STOP, STOP! It's difficult to up interactivity without in some ways destroying immersion. The more control the audience has over the environment, the less they're able to freely immerse themselves in it. I have no interest in creating an environment or a persona, I'd like to see what a great artist can come up with, and experience that... the same way I love listening to a great piece of music.
I love how their definition of RPG seems to be limited to the much smaller subset of American PC-style RPGs. That definition may be a realistic one, but it's pretty much moot for a good 75% of games that are considered "RPGs". So what if half the genre needs a new name, that's what they're called.
Also, I found the definition for "platform game" to be completely wrong, and over-complicated: A platform game is simply an adventure game in which the character's movements are key to progressing through the environment. A staple has been to have a plethora of floating and moving platforms... hence the genre name, "platform game". Some have unrealistic graphics... some don't. Many traditional adventure games have unrealistic and stylized graphics too... but I'm noone's going to call the latest Monkey Island a platform game. Action Adventure and Platformers are merging to the point of indistinguishability. Every action/adventure these days has platform elements, and platformers are fastly becoming epic and intriquite like their action/adventure counterparts. But it's not graphical style that dictates the traditional boundary.
When you'd rather put your dick in a disk drive than in your wife.
Fuck that. No-one's denying the right for parents to not allow AO content. And what's worse is, parents are NOT taking responsibility these days, so someone has to. And lack of responsibility is not being caused by some kind of Nany-state scenario, it's a side effect of a deeper problem in our culture: laziness, we just tend to blame the government for it.
We have one of the least socially involved governments on the face of the planet, yet WE'RE the lazy ones. Maybe having a Nany-state would force people to wake up and realize that SOMEONE has to take responsibility for their actions.
Sure it is, and I'm glad. If you haven't noticed, Nintendo has been very candid about how they feel videogames should play a role in our lives. Miyamoto, whose philosophical ideals make him about the equivalent, for video games, as Frank Zappa was for music, is basically at the heart of their message. They don't send him out to talk about his philosophy for nothing.
I have to dissagree. Maybe Sony and Microsoft have little ethical mission, but you can bet your ass Nintendo does. I happen to agree with them 100%, so I'm just going to cheer them on (I'm glad to see a company really have an overall "vision" the way they do), but I can understand that others might be pissed.
Bingo...
Adult Video Game consumers = 13-18 year olds (for the most part)
Actual adults don't feel they have a point to prove. On the contrary, many of us which we were kids.
Oh, man... world 7... *sob*
One of the SADDEST video game scenes ever, and I've played some really sad games.
Bullshit. Monty Python blood is so incredibly satyrical that you can't possibly take it seriously. Mortal Kombat was possibly some of the most realistic graphics in a game, of its time. By today's standards, it looks silly, but back then, I remember my friends and I huddling around and thinking, "wow, those look like photographs of real people!" You don't see 13 year olds huddling around monty python going, "Woah, that's badass", they're more likely to just laugh at the absurdity of it all. I dunno if you were around back then, but MK was pretty "badass", not satyr.
I simply refuse to believe that the only reason why there wasn't as much violent content 10 years ago was due to the technology. The anti is constantly being upped... why? Because we're constantly "testing" ourselves to see if we can tolerate just A LITTLE MORE. I just think it's cheap, and mindless. I'd like to see people develop a sense of TASTE. I'm sick of all the
This is NOT simply a given, and part of human nature, ya know how I can tell? Because *my* opinion is living proof that it's not simply "human nature". Why am I like that? Because I seem to have been raised differently. Do I want everyone to have been raised like me? You bet your ass... but that would really suck for humanity. All I'm asking is that people learn to develop their own sense of taste... and I'm not seeing it. This isn't taste, this is simply scarfing down the equivalent of eye-fast food, because developing taste requires thought, and people are being fucking lazy.
It's fucking cultural, and our culture seems to enjoy it. FUCK US.
The real issue here, above and beyond the "do games make people violent?" question, is why are adult gamers demanding such violence? "Please consider the opinion of the adult gamer," sort of disturbs me, somehow. Why is the opinion of the adult gamer, consistantly, "we want more violence!"? 30 years ago, this level of violence was unthinkable. It's not the violence itself that I mind, it's the fascination with violence that really disgusts me.
When the topic first came up, and that pretty much started in the mainstream with Mortal Kombat, the defense was that it added realism and immersion. But to be honest, I never bought it. And that's becoming apparant now that we're going above and beyond realistic violence to DEMANDING that violence be much more prevolent than just an innocent desire to uphold "realism".
I think there's really two reasons for this:
1) We're not talking about adults here, we're talking 13-18 year olds. It's basically the job of teenagers to try to disgust their parents as much as possible, as a form of rebellion.
2) Culturally, males are being taught that they're basically immoral and unintelligent, and that the only way to prove your masculinity is to be the ultimate in those areas. "I want a beer, and I want to see something naked... that's all." When better way of establishing that identity by sitting and playing ultra-violent video games with no emotional tie-in? I've seen it, 15 year olds saying, "check this out, I can cut off his head" and then go up to some guy, and chop off his head while he's screaming in pain. It basically says, "I can do this, and I won't even feel remorseful about it, it doesn't bother me, because I'm a man."
So my theory is that violence is largely used as a means of establishing independance and gender identity. It's not the fault of video games, it's the fault of our culture for not having any possitive rolemodels to look up to. As a friend of mine likes to quote, "where have all the cowboys gone?"
On the contrary. The Godfather, as it is done, is specifically setup so that you're incredibly disgusted by the violence that takes place. It's so incredibly depressing to see Michael head down the path of nastiness, that you can't help but be revolted. In many ways, The Godfather is a poster child of how violence can be used, effectively, as a way of reinforcing how much violence really distroys humanity.
Scarface, on the flipside, is one that could be argued that makes you identify with the violence, at least for a time. By the end, you're disgusted by the path he's taken, but not neccessarilly because he's violent, but of who he aims his violence at.
I'm not completely anti-violence in film or games, it's all about HOW it is presented. If it is presented as mindless and fun, many times it's actually not so bad, really. In a James Bond movie, you don't really concentrate so much on how a person dies, or their suffering, in fact, it's goes almost completely unnoticed, it really doesn't have a strong negative or possitive impact on how a person percieves violence. On the other hand, you have movies like The Godfather, Munich, or Letters from Iwagima that force the audience to be saddened and repulsed by the violence being committed. The danger are films that are created so that the audience can rellish and take pleasure in the violent acts. Movies such as Hostile or Saw are the ones that we really should be the most concerned with.
Similarly, the way most people play GTA, Mortal Kombat, and probably Manhunt is a bit upsetting, and inline with the titilating portrayal of violence in the above suspense films.
I will agree that NAFTA was unforgivable corporate pandaring, and has DEVISTATED Mexico far past what it would have been. I will never forgive Clinton for that. But, aside from NAFTA, I think his presidency, overall, was pretty positive, especially considering other presidents in recent years.
How do you get off making the claim that Clinton was evil and that Nixon wasn't? Seriously, I know it's cliche to quote Watergate, but breaking and entering is fucking evil, in of itself. And I don't buy the "but all politicians do it, he just got caught" arguement... bullshit, he was much more brutal in his efforts to cover his tracks than anyone in the past century, except for probably Bush II. Ford wasn't evil, I'll give you that. But Carter was a fucking saint... unfortunately, saints don't make for good administrators.
I'm actually all for cutting back on violence in video games, and limitting children's access to certian titles. BUT, "personally engaged in acting out the fantasy", I don't believe that this is any more harmfull than movies. There are some possitive aspects of acting out ones fantasies, even if they're violent ones. Sitting back and ALLOWING violence to take place may very well be even more harmful. I really don't think we have the evidence to back up a claim that video games are more harmful than movies.
Then again, I'm very saddened by trends towards ultra-violence, simply because of their social and cultural implications. I think males, especially, are being told that it's simply "part of their nature" to enjoy these kinds of things... what happened to the heroic, positive male role model? Chivilry was good and alive just decades ago. Now, we have "Everyone Loves Raymond" which teaches us that men are supposed to be insensitive, unintelligent slobs with no sense of moral judgement.
I think "Everyone Loves Raymond" and similar programming is much more detrimental to society than Manhunt will ever be.
But it DOES help the "everyone friendly" image that the Wii is SUPPOSED to be putting out.
Well, I've discussed, at length, with quite a few friends who carefully explain what they feel is the real meat of the series. They're all pretty intelligent, and I tend to see where they're coming from, and considering they seem to have a similar story to tell, I think I've got a pretty good picture of what they're talking about.
"If the next Zelda is half as good as Max Payne 2 was, we should have something special, indeed."
FALLOUT ISN'T OBLIVION!!! When are people going to get it into their heads??? The two series are not only completely different, they're meant to appeal to completely different aesthetics. Ya know, it's sorta along the lines of Final Fantasy pandering to jock gamers, or Resident Evil pandering to young casual gamers.
It's good to have different series that are DIFFERENT, because everyone gets something that they like. Sure, it's good to branch out and expand your audience, but not if it completely disregards the fundimentals of the series.
I, myself, am not a Fallout fan, I've never actually played a Fallout game, but I've seen them quite a bit, and I'm interested in picking one up at some point. And even *I* can recognize the huge gaping gorge that is the difference between Fallout and Oblivion.
Things that will make Fallout suck, by default:
- First Person [check]
- Real-Time [check]
- FPS elements [check]
I have a nice 19" Samsung HDTV that I bought a few months back, and to double as a computer monitor. Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can afford something like a 37" HDTV. Hell, I paid a good $440 for mine, and that was probably more than I should have. Anyway, it is true HD, though it doesn't have an HD tuner (which is fine, since I can't get TV reception in my cabin anyway).
Now, I am interested in the rescaling of PS2 games on the PS3, but from what I've understood is that there's no smoothing going on (except for maybe 2D graphics), but just model resizing. If there's some anti-aliasing going on, that would be great, but I haven't heard anything to that extent.
Agreed, this is the whole reason why I use Firefox with a Safari theme. I love Safari's interface, but the lack of programming searches into the url field... no Safari for me. Well, that and Firefox's "Find-by-typing" feature, which is just awesome.
I've heard that there are 3rd party plugins for Safari which can add these things though. I don't have internet at home currently, but I'll look into it as soon as I do.
Note that most of the "crunch" does NOT come from coding, but from the artists/designers. Games, these days, are about 90% art/design, and 10% coding.
And sure game design can counter 10x difference in power. In the opinion of myself, and most people who have played it, Okami is one of the greatest looking games ever made. That was a PS2 game. The graphical "trick" in this case, was coming up with a style that was so wonderful, in it's own right, that it completely overcame a lack of horsepower.
Do just that... it's not a lot to ask. One thing Nintendo is looking for is seriousness and longevity. Are you going to turn around and burn them, and your fan base, by not delivering? That's just bad for the industry. Of course, having put out ONE PC game is not a great judge, but it's a start, and it's not a lot to ask, either.
It's really the only way to avoid what happened in the early 80s. We went through it, and it sucked, and the industry almost died and rotted with bad designers who poisoned the whole field. It's not good for the whole medium to have a lot of badly designed, or ill-concieved games. If it were to open up, there'd be thousands of fly-by-night developer houses who would clog the system with uncreative clones, no design sense, and just overall bad games.
If you're truly a proponant of increasing the quality of games, you're going to have to be serious about both the creative and business end of things. If anything, I applaud Nintendo on requiring this of people. The bottom line is, I want gaming to become better and more sophisticated, and if that means keeping out the wannabe's, I'm all for it.
On the flip side, if someone were to present Nintendo with a very very interesting idea, worthy of exploration, even if they're too small an outfit to qualify, there's a good possibilty Nintendo will just hire them, directly, in order to have that kind of creative juice in their ranks. Why steal content, when you can buy pure creativity that continues to creative content? Nintendo seems to be more interested in that anyway.
The problem is, even "hardcore gamers", make up a small percentage of even the avid gamer crowd. I'm defining "hardcore gamers" as specifically the psychographic who is looking for violent, competative, fast-paced, complicated games. There's a whole lot of other gamers out there, however, who put just as much time, energy, and most importantly, MONEY, into it, who are not at all put off by the all-inclusive philosophy of the Wii. Myself, for instance; I see the Wii as being more inclusive of my aesthetic than the PS3 is... although the 360 is starting to branch out a bit.
Maybe microsoft is starting to realize that "hardcore gamers", while the most vocal (because they like to yell obscenities alot), may not actually speak all that loud with their $$$. The "gamer" population is a lot most complicated than just "hardcore gamers" and "everyone else".
I dunno if it's how much you play, but how much thought and energy you put into it. I think I'm more than just a hobbiest. I have plans to work in the field one day, and if not that, the media in general, so I'm soaking up gobbs of design principals, and analyzing what works and doesn't work. I enjoy games, but I also am a student of them, as well.