Well, you sorta missed the point. How many games out there truly offer innovative (and creative) graphics? Not very many... even the ones with "GREAT GRAPHICS!!!" mostly are rehashed ideas, simply at higher polygon counts, better lighting effects, etc. What we're talking about, here, is more "style" than "graphics" in the traditional sense. There are many great games, in fact, I would say most great games, that center around establishing a very particular atmosphere. The Metroid series, for example, would be extremely forgetable without it's immersive qualities, and that is largely graphically driven (as well as musically and in sound effects). The fact is, Okami offers a truly unique style and atmosphere, established, largely, by the graphics. I would argue that, right there, it is a very worthwhile game, simply because of it's unique immersive qualities. Gameplay elements are really the easy part of the equation, and in some ways, not all that important. Going back to Metroid... besides the fact that it has a level-less world, what does it REALLY offer that's new? Not very much, gameplay wise. There were a million other side-scrolling shooters at the time, some great, some not so great. What set the Metroid series apart from the pack was it's unique feel. When you look back on what you like and dislike about a game, I bet most of what you're going to remember is how it made you feel.
Okami is to Zelda what Metroid was to a million other side-scrollers before it. And this is not to say that Okami doesn't offer it's own gameplay elements. Don't be fooled, it offers quite a bit. The only thing is that there is NOTHING really quite like the 3D Zelda series, so anything that is even in the same basic genre is going to get compared, where-as you can make a million FPSs and Side-Scrollers, and all you need is slight changes to the basic model to have, what is considered, a "unique" game. For one thing, Okami is an RPG. It uses experience points (though not called that), to gain higher stats, and the battles take place in "arena" like areas, separated from the rest of the game (even though the transition between them is instantanious and seemless). From a control standpoint, movement is MUCH faster, and you can jump at will (and wall jump as well, which is used all the time). None of this is truly revolutionary, of course, but it's combination of various gameplay elements is unique. The paint system, on the other hand, is truly original. At the touch of a button, time stops, and you can litterally "paint" spells onto objects, characters, and enemies. The fact that you're constantly stopping time makes the gameplay feel very different, all in itself, Sure, one can link it to songs on a flute or batton, but the paintbrush is much faster, and much more constantly used (usually a good 4-5 times per battle), so its role is quite different. From an overworld, perspective, it is much larger and more epic. Instead of the game consisting largely of one central area with smaller areas off to the side, there are many many smaller areas, and 4-5 large fields in which you can branch off from. It's a journey, you won't find yourself constantly re-tracing your steps.
I completely agree, I'm playing Okami now, and I haven't seen a game that seemed so... inspired, in a LONG time. My thought was, "I hope they don't do a sequel", not because it wouldn't make for a good series, but Okami is Okami, let it be, and let the creators/artists progress even further into the depths of their creativity on their next project.
Now, is Inaba staying with Capcom or not? I hope not, because I don't Capcom neururing much innovation these days (especially after breaking up their "indy" studio shortly after their most seccessful quarter, ever). Have you heard, one way or the other?
I'm in the middle of Okami right now, and it's the freshed feeling game I've seen in a LONG time. And yes, it is because of the graphics. Okami goes against the grain of this trend toward absolute realism, and actually chooses to take a very artistic direction instead. For that reason, it's not just about the graphics, but the philosophy behind the game, "abstraction not only has a place in video games, it can be downright breathtaking". My problem with the absolute realism movement is that it has no creativity behind it... all it is is pixel pushing, not to say it's a simple deal, but it's a concrete goal that can be objectively evaluated, and not neccarilly artisically driven. This is an oversimplification, of course, but I see it in all aspects of game design these days.
Now, Okami is obviously incredibly Wind Waker inspired, but I don't think that's a bad thing at all. All creative endevours are built on the achievements of others. Okami earns it's legitimacy in doing something few games have done, it has become an interactive work of art. I haven't felt that in a game since I played Myst back in the day, and even then, the graphical style was much less abstracted.
Interestly, it seems that Okami is doing VERY well, the video game press has been raiving about it endlessly, and it seems to be selling well. I was just thinking, the other day, "I wonder what this 'Clover Studios' is going to do next?" In some ways, I had more hope for their future works than any other studio at the moment, so this is a big letdown.
We've done the comic book thing to death, and it's just WAY too obvious a direction to take (since a large percentage of japanese games are done by Anime artists, and many american games are done by comic artists), and I'm sick of it. We've done disney (oh god, have we done disney), and then we've done contemporary blockbuster cinema (TO DEATH), it is high time for games to break free of their "pop art" constraints. I'm not saying that Okami is quite there, but it's a damn good start.
Sure, Okami is working off of pre-existing visual styles (namely Japanese water-color along with a good touch of old-school cartoon styling), but the fact that it's the first to be able to put them into this kind of use, and into an interactive framework, is quite an achievement. Can you imagine a whole game done in the style of cubism? We could explore impressionism a bit... and then maybe, just maybe, venture into uncharted visual territory? These are the questions that have been spinning in my head for the last few weeks.
Bi-partisian-ism, is as bad for people as are oil companies who collaborate to fix gas prices. One of the basic principals of capatalism is that any system works best if all parties (be it corporate or political) are under the pressure of competition, and even better if that competition is fairly even, so that all parties are constantly having to look over their shoulder. What we have now is a bloated government caused by a severe imbalance of power, a political monopoly, of sorts, by the extreme right. Just as bad as a monopoly, however, is the consistant agreement between parties. Way too much blood has already been spilt under the cliched and dubious banner of "bipartisanship". No, what we need are strong leaders who will fight for their convictions, but who are willing to play by the rules set by the US consitution. THAT'S how a good system works. Some of the most prosperous periods in US history were caused by a balance of power... the 90's being one of them. Both Clinton and the Congress were at their best when they were at odds with each other... that was a fine example of our system of checks and balances in operation.
The term "bipartisan" is simply a catch phrase, used, usually by the far right, as a way of trying to move the public perception of the "center" over to their side. It's a Rovian tactic, it's anti-capitalist, it's tacky, and most of all, it's not even an idea that we really want. What we need is compromise under the pressure of heated debate... NOT Bipartisanship.
Apple isn't going to like this very much, but two 19" screens increase productivity far more than going to one 30". 30" may give you more desktop space, but tracking from one side to the other takes an eternity, unless you're at a really low resolution. Humans work much more efficiently when things are compartmentalized; it's much easier to systematically place and trace the location of something when the container is broken up into smaller sections. I've been working with two monitors now for almost a year, for video editing. The standard video editing station, these days, has two monitors side by side, with one or two televisions off to the side, separated from the monitors. One could argue that having a 30" screen would allow for a 3 foot long timeline, but at a certain point, it's too much to bite off and chew. For most multi-window applications, two monitors is far superior to one larger monitor.
The only application I use that would be better served by having a huge monitor is music scoring (I use Sibelius, but Finale would have the same benefits). In that case, the entire work area is one window, with a few smaller paletts off to the side. Unlike Photoshop, however, where the combined palettes take up more space than the actual workspace, a full orchestral score takes a HUGE amount of space, and it's nice to not have to scroll around to find what you're looking for.
Actually, it's incredibly effective. To be able to train your mind to be able to accomplish whatever goal is set, takes incredible amounts of relaxed thought. Neuro-feedback therepy (which I used to do), uses games with simple goals that can only be accomplished when your brain is able to output certain brainwave frequencies. For ADD, these are usually things that corrispond to heightened awareness (a lack of which is one of the main causes of ADD), lowered beta waves, etc. When that goal is met, the computer gives possitive feedback in the form of some visual or auditory cue. After a while, the brain can't help but draw connections between the cues it's getting and its current brainwave output. After a while, simply wanting that goal to happen causes your brain to settle into whatever brainwave criteria has been set. Eventually, the brain will be able to do this automatically, at will, whether or not the feedback is there. Most syndromes like ADD and depression, can be fixed, at least to a point, if the brain is given the ability to be able to switch to another state, at will.
So, a kid who has the ability to manipulate their brainwave pattern enough to control a game as complicated as an ATARI game, or Mario Bros., will have much better self-control than one that doesn't.
I really wish I hadn't quit with it, but going back and forth between my home town and college made that impossible at the time.
No, really. I have. In fact, this is not very uncommon, the only difference here is that the EEG was used to control an ATARI, instead of pre-written (for the EEG) PC games. I used to do Neuro-feedback therepy, which mostly consisted of sitting in a chair, and controlling various objects on screen. Most of them were simple things like getting a ball on a teeter-totter to move back and forth (which I could finally do). The theory is that once a person learns to subconciously change their own brainwave pattern, they're more easily able to overcome anxiety, depression, ADD, and other related syndromes. It was actually a really refreshing experience, I would walk out, every day, as if my mental state had just been wiped clean, which was great.
Anyway, I was only able to do it for about 2 months or so, and by that point, I could already control some things onscreen just by thinking about it. Eventually, you're neurons are routed so that thinking "go right" causes whatever criteria is neccessary to achieve that (say, lowered beta frequency waves) to automatically happen. If you were to do it for a good year or so, it seems quite probable that you could do something as complicated as play Mario Bros. on an EEG.
What I'm most interested in, though, as an electronic musician, is the ability to play music from an EEG... via something like Max/MSP... it wouldn't be too difficult to do, and eventually, you're just sitting there, thinking the notes, and they just play, once you've trained yourself, enough.
Dude, I love Hackett's style, but I'm only familiar with him from Genesis, haven't checked out his solo stuff yet. I have heard the re-recorded sessions he did with John Wetton, doing old Genesis and Krimson tunes, and it blew my mind. Anyone who thinks that it was Gabrial who put the prog into Genesis should be shot (no offense to Peter), it was Hackett all along... hence great stuff like Los Endos.
That said, I don't think there's much hope for Hackett, I think you're more likely to see Steve Howe on there, just simply by name recognition. Even in guitar circles, you don't hear about Hackett enough. When it comes to prog, you hear about Petrucci about 90% of the time, maybe a little Steve Howe, Alex Lifeson, David Gilmour, and more recently Roine Stolt, and then you have the Vai/Malmstein/Satriani crowd, but let's face it, for band players, there's noone more commonly talked about for technical prowess than Petrucci. Walk into any guitar center, and I can almost guarentee you'll hear someone playing some kind of Dream Theater lick.
The bottom line is, though, that Guitar Hero isn't made for guitarists, in fact, guitarists are going to be kinda excluded, because most of them can already play the real thing (I say "most" because... well, there's LOTS of guitarists who can't play out there). And you're only going to get the biggest, most highly known hard rock and metal hits. Still, I think Metropolis, or even one of their more commercial tunes like Lie or Pull Me Under would make a great "bonus" track for GH.
If we get any prog at all in GH, it's not going to immediately be obscure stuff like solo Hackett, Camel, or even Flower Kings, the most we can hope for is Rush (which we got) and Dream Theater... and maybe some Yes, although it'll probably be either Roundabout or Owner of a Lonely Heart (Rabin-era, blech!)
There are games that have dramatic dinner-table scenes in them, actually, check out any game in the Grandia series, where over half of the interesting character interaction takes place during dinner table conversations. Granted, these are only mildly interactive, so some may rightly point out that they're simply an extension of cinema/television stuck into a game. However, videogames ARE exactly that, a melting pot of media, just as cinema and television combine theatre with music as well as some new elements (such as the ability to instantaniously change the time & space of actions). Games are simply another melting pot media, only this time cinema is one of the included forms. Games are no different than cinema in the regard that they take previously explored media, put them together, and in doing so also bring some new elements to the table as well, "interactivity" being one of these.
I really like what a poster wrote a few posts up, when he compared the current state of games to the infancy of television (during its first 30 or so years), if you think about it, until Luciel Ball came around, TV was pretty piss poor, it took a long time for TV to get off the ground. Now, we have shows like LOST and Law & Order that can hold its own compared to its cinematic counterparts. Similarly, Cinema was little more than recorded theatre - sound for quite some time. It takes time for a new media to recognize it's unique elements and to properly figure out how to exploit them. I think we're doing that now with games, but it's still in its infancy.
I think what the Sopranos creator is refering to, specifically, is HIS game, the Sopranos game. And OF COURSE its going to be a lesser. A large majority of all arts/entertainment that takes a piece from one media and attempts to translate it to another FAILS. Cinema only started getting it right with literature in the past 30 or so years, and still they fail much of the time. I can probably count, on one hand, the number of TV shows made from movies that were equal to or better than their counterparts (Stargate SG1 is the only one that comes to mind, actually). No game movie EVER has come close to being as good as its respective game.
No, but seriously, time is a good filter. Usually the higher end of things tend to be remembered, at least all the crap gets forgotten. As big as Disturbed are, in 20 years, hardly ANYONE will remember who they are. If you really think back to the early 80s in gaming, there was a whole lot of shit out there... I'm a proponant to think that creativity is pretty constant among humans... no matter how corporate we get, or how primative we become, there's usually always about the same amount of truly inspiring things out there, and it may take decades for it to get all sorted out, which is why you are guarenteed at least some semblance of quality if you look back at stuff in the past.
No, that's not it. There are only 6 lines above that are not drawn (NTSC is technically 720x486)... that's not counting the emergency safe zone (about 20 pixels, or so, on either side and top and bottom that are obscurred by the frame of the TV set... yes, a standard NTSC actually only desplays about 680x440 due to the emergency safe zone). But standard NTSC resolution, as it is talked about, is 720x480, with 6 overscan lines (which includes things like closed captioning, frame sync, and fun things like that). What I was refering to was however, was the horizontal resolution change. NTSC sets use rectangular pixels, where the width is 90% of the height, to achieve a 4:3 ratio, instead of being 640x480, it's 720x480. Since many of Apple's shows are going to be played on NTSC-standard TVs, 640x480 is going to look squashed. Not that I'm ANY advocate of NTSC by any means, it's a dated, overcomplicated, low quality, and irrelivent standard that should have been done away with a long time ago. Square pixels, progressive scan, and higher resolution are LONG overdue. I'm a TV producer, and I hate dealing with NTSC... every time I make a graphic, I have to use a setting in Photoshop, or whatever program I'm using, to squash it. It makes no sense to me why they chose to use a rectangular pixel geometery.
lol, the only game I actually STOPPED PLAYING due to terrible voice acting. And I've played Star Ocean 2, so that says A LOT! It also has the honor of being the only game I've ever sold back. What a game... what a fucking disaster! It didn't help that all the voices sounded like they were recorded inside a tin can. I know they were trying to get the effect that you were some spectoral being listening in from another plane... but couldn't they have figured out a better way of representing this than adding reverb that sounded like it came out of a casio keyboard? As an audio producer, it was offensive, as a someone who does a lot of voiceovers and voiceacting, it was also offensive, and as someone who simply appreciates dialog that doesn't sound like it was written by 3rd graders, it was offensive. When I heard, "Skies of Arcadia meets a card-based system" I really got my hopes up... God, what a disaster!
That's NOT a very good analogy. GTA and Maddan are basically dead in Japan (and never really lived), I don't even know whether Maddan is released over there. On the flip side, Final Fantasy does VERY WELL over here, in fact, moves quite a few more units than in Japan... even though the per-capita offering is much smaller. With the newly revived interest in Dragon Quest, due to the popularity of DQ8, you can bank on them caring a lot more about the US than ever. Japanese RPGs do pretty well over here, they tend to come up with about the same amount of frequency as do Maddan and GTA games, which is why more and more RPGs are being localized, even though the addition of voiceacting makes this process much more costly nowadays.
The US is much more arrogant about what it cares about than even Japan (and yes, Japan is very arrogant), there's not much of a comparison between companies like EA and Square.
Star Ocean 3 was rediculous...ly bad. It got so much hype an praise, and having loved SO2, I was really hoping for something special. Instead, the battle system, which really is the only reason for playing a SO game, was incredibly badly designed, combersomb, and frusterating. On top of that, the story was shit (hackneyed cliche after cliche, and not even done well), the dialog was cringe-worthy, the characters were flat and didn't exude any feeling, and worst of all, the camera angle made navigation so confusing, that it forced me to play the game with the transparent map over the screen the ENTIRE GAME, which pretty much kills any ingame graphics.
Have you played Grandia 3? I saw you mentioned Grandia 2, so I thought I'd mention it. Where-as, overall, I was much more drawn to the characters and dialog in Grandia 2 (Cam Clarke as Ryudo helped that as well), I have to say, the battle system in Grandia 3 is perfection! It does make more sense to have the progress done in a circular dial as opposed to a bar, and there's some added ways of cancelling enemies that really work well. I think it's safe to say that for stop time battle systems (including FFs ATB varient), hell, any RPG battle system, Grandia 3s is the best, most fun, and most involving without getting rediculously complex. I just wish the characters and dialog were to the calliber of its predicessor.
I've played most of the FF games, FF1, and then FF4-10. And while FF10 is probably easier than FF1, they drastically ratcheted up the difficulty from 6-9 (my favorite games in the series). Sure, you were fully healed at every save point, but many times you couldn't GET to the next save point, because after a long and gruelling dungeon, there would be a boss MUCH harder than anything FF6-9 gave us. Sometimes there was a save point before the boss, sometimes there wasn't, but I remember dieing several times during the Yunalesca battle, and quite a few during some of the harder Seymour battles (not the final one, that was easy). Where-as, I don't think I even know what the FF7 death screen looks like.
Look out for FF12, because I've heard the game is INSANELY difficult. FF4 hard-type was probably the most difficult FF game I've played, and from the sound of it FF12 might be harder. Of course, that isn't always a good thing, after all, Star Ocean 3 was also really difficult.
Re:The Human Computer Interface
on
GUIs Get a Makeover
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The problem is telling the computer what to do. I'm surprised that voice-recognition hasn't progressed further.
I was just writing about this above. Actually, voice-recognition has progressed considerably in the last few years, due to handhelds. Cellphone voice recognition is practically standard, now days. There's a few problems with bridging the gap over to desktop computers (less with laptops, though), the main one being that most people don't have a mic built into their system. Companies have TRIED with mics built into monitors, but that hasn't seemed to fly, except in the Mac world.
A lot of that will be workflow analysis, such as "User A always saves before printing, so if they save, make the print icon easier to find and click." will be necessary.
These kinds of things scare me. People become faster with computers as they learn repetative operations. Even if something is a little more confusing than you would expect it to be, people become quick at it because they know how to do it. Placing the printer icon in a different place after a certain operation may speed up operation, in theory, but it leaves the user constantly guessing as to where the options are going to be placed next. I'm all for customization, but let ME do the customizing, through actually doing the customizing, I then learn exactly where things are. Traditionally, AIs have always been very bad at trying to figure out as to what users want to do, and usually make the operation much more difficult as a result. Take arrow "Snap To", for an example. The thing is supposed to figure out where I want to click next, in a dialog box. At the same time, every time it auto snaps, I'm left going "what the hell just happened?" and searching for the arrow. which takes a lot longer than physically moving over to the dialog box and clicking the button. If anything, I think computers try too much to figure out what you REALLY want to do, and most of the time it's either disorienting, or just feels patronizing.
Voice recognition is getting so good nowdays, as a result of handheld devices (I no longer dial numbers on my cellphone anymore, I just say the name of the person I'm calling), I think we'll start to see voice recognition GUIs here within the next few years, at least on handhelds. The keyboard may then eventually go the way of the dinosaur as an unneccessary paripheral. We'll always see new little GUI gadgets, some of them good (Expose), and some of them bad (Clippy), I don't mind having new options for how I run my system... as long as I can turn off or ignore the ones I don't want.
yeah, that was probably a bit harsh. It's just annoying when I hear people complain about their iPod getting scratched up. Well, duh. I don't have any problem with people not using a case, just don't complain about it. You've taken measures to protect yours, which is all I was saying.
My thoughts were that most iPod cases come with a belt clip and many people are searching for a way to mount their iPod in the car... so why not just combine the two, and mount a loop or clip system on the dash of the car? It's been extremely convenient for me.
I'm not quite sure where you are refering to, "here"... do you live in the US or somewhere else? American drivers are pretty bad, and I hate the driving attitude in the US, although I've heard some statistics that most European countries have far worse accident rates, and that cell phone driving is even worse over there. No, Americans just eat in the car all the time (and everywhere else, for that matter).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you sorta missed the point. How many games out there truly offer innovative (and creative) graphics? Not very many... even the ones with "GREAT GRAPHICS!!!" mostly are rehashed ideas, simply at higher polygon counts, better lighting effects, etc. What we're talking about, here, is more "style" than "graphics" in the traditional sense. There are many great games, in fact, I would say most great games, that center around establishing a very particular atmosphere. The Metroid series, for example, would be extremely forgetable without it's immersive qualities, and that is largely graphically driven (as well as musically and in sound effects). The fact is, Okami offers a truly unique style and atmosphere, established, largely, by the graphics. I would argue that, right there, it is a very worthwhile game, simply because of it's unique immersive qualities. Gameplay elements are really the easy part of the equation, and in some ways, not all that important. Going back to Metroid... besides the fact that it has a level-less world, what does it REALLY offer that's new? Not very much, gameplay wise. There were a million other side-scrolling shooters at the time, some great, some not so great. What set the Metroid series apart from the pack was it's unique feel. When you look back on what you like and dislike about a game, I bet most of what you're going to remember is how it made you feel.
Okami is to Zelda what Metroid was to a million other side-scrollers before it. And this is not to say that Okami doesn't offer it's own gameplay elements. Don't be fooled, it offers quite a bit. The only thing is that there is NOTHING really quite like the 3D Zelda series, so anything that is even in the same basic genre is going to get compared, where-as you can make a million FPSs and Side-Scrollers, and all you need is slight changes to the basic model to have, what is considered, a "unique" game. For one thing, Okami is an RPG. It uses experience points (though not called that), to gain higher stats, and the battles take place in "arena" like areas, separated from the rest of the game (even though the transition between them is instantanious and seemless). From a control standpoint, movement is MUCH faster, and you can jump at will (and wall jump as well, which is used all the time). None of this is truly revolutionary, of course, but it's combination of various gameplay elements is unique. The paint system, on the other hand, is truly original. At the touch of a button, time stops, and you can litterally "paint" spells onto objects, characters, and enemies. The fact that you're constantly stopping time makes the gameplay feel very different, all in itself, Sure, one can link it to songs on a flute or batton, but the paintbrush is much faster, and much more constantly used (usually a good 4-5 times per battle), so its role is quite different. From an overworld, perspective, it is much larger and more epic. Instead of the game consisting largely of one central area with smaller areas off to the side, there are many many smaller areas, and 4-5 large fields in which you can branch off from. It's a journey, you won't find yourself constantly re-tracing your steps.
I completely agree, I'm playing Okami now, and I haven't seen a game that seemed so... inspired, in a LONG time. My thought was, "I hope they don't do a sequel", not because it wouldn't make for a good series, but Okami is Okami, let it be, and let the creators/artists progress even further into the depths of their creativity on their next project.
Now, is Inaba staying with Capcom or not? I hope not, because I don't Capcom neururing much innovation these days (especially after breaking up their "indy" studio shortly after their most seccessful quarter, ever). Have you heard, one way or the other?
I'm in the middle of Okami right now, and it's the freshed feeling game I've seen in a LONG time. And yes, it is because of the graphics. Okami goes against the grain of this trend toward absolute realism, and actually chooses to take a very artistic direction instead. For that reason, it's not just about the graphics, but the philosophy behind the game, "abstraction not only has a place in video games, it can be downright breathtaking". My problem with the absolute realism movement is that it has no creativity behind it... all it is is pixel pushing, not to say it's a simple deal, but it's a concrete goal that can be objectively evaluated, and not neccarilly artisically driven. This is an oversimplification, of course, but I see it in all aspects of game design these days.
Now, Okami is obviously incredibly Wind Waker inspired, but I don't think that's a bad thing at all. All creative endevours are built on the achievements of others. Okami earns it's legitimacy in doing something few games have done, it has become an interactive work of art. I haven't felt that in a game since I played Myst back in the day, and even then, the graphical style was much less abstracted.
Interestly, it seems that Okami is doing VERY well, the video game press has been raiving about it endlessly, and it seems to be selling well. I was just thinking, the other day, "I wonder what this 'Clover Studios' is going to do next?" In some ways, I had more hope for their future works than any other studio at the moment, so this is a big letdown.
We've done the comic book thing to death, and it's just WAY too obvious a direction to take (since a large percentage of japanese games are done by Anime artists, and many american games are done by comic artists), and I'm sick of it. We've done disney (oh god, have we done disney), and then we've done contemporary blockbuster cinema (TO DEATH), it is high time for games to break free of their "pop art" constraints. I'm not saying that Okami is quite there, but it's a damn good start.
Sure, Okami is working off of pre-existing visual styles (namely Japanese water-color along with a good touch of old-school cartoon styling), but the fact that it's the first to be able to put them into this kind of use, and into an interactive framework, is quite an achievement. Can you imagine a whole game done in the style of cubism? We could explore impressionism a bit... and then maybe, just maybe, venture into uncharted visual territory? These are the questions that have been spinning in my head for the last few weeks.
Bi-partisian-ism, is as bad for people as are oil companies who collaborate to fix gas prices. One of the basic principals of capatalism is that any system works best if all parties (be it corporate or political) are under the pressure of competition, and even better if that competition is fairly even, so that all parties are constantly having to look over their shoulder. What we have now is a bloated government caused by a severe imbalance of power, a political monopoly, of sorts, by the extreme right. Just as bad as a monopoly, however, is the consistant agreement between parties. Way too much blood has already been spilt under the cliched and dubious banner of "bipartisanship". No, what we need are strong leaders who will fight for their convictions, but who are willing to play by the rules set by the US consitution. THAT'S how a good system works. Some of the most prosperous periods in US history were caused by a balance of power... the 90's being one of them. Both Clinton and the Congress were at their best when they were at odds with each other... that was a fine example of our system of checks and balances in operation.
The term "bipartisan" is simply a catch phrase, used, usually by the far right, as a way of trying to move the public perception of the "center" over to their side. It's a Rovian tactic, it's anti-capitalist, it's tacky, and most of all, it's not even an idea that we really want. What we need is compromise under the pressure of heated debate... NOT Bipartisanship.
Apple isn't going to like this very much, but two 19" screens increase productivity far more than going to one 30". 30" may give you more desktop space, but tracking from one side to the other takes an eternity, unless you're at a really low resolution. Humans work much more efficiently when things are compartmentalized; it's much easier to systematically place and trace the location of something when the container is broken up into smaller sections. I've been working with two monitors now for almost a year, for video editing. The standard video editing station, these days, has two monitors side by side, with one or two televisions off to the side, separated from the monitors. One could argue that having a 30" screen would allow for a 3 foot long timeline, but at a certain point, it's too much to bite off and chew. For most multi-window applications, two monitors is far superior to one larger monitor.
The only application I use that would be better served by having a huge monitor is music scoring (I use Sibelius, but Finale would have the same benefits). In that case, the entire work area is one window, with a few smaller paletts off to the side. Unlike Photoshop, however, where the combined palettes take up more space than the actual workspace, a full orchestral score takes a HUGE amount of space, and it's nice to not have to scroll around to find what you're looking for.
So, a kid who has the ability to manipulate their brainwave pattern enough to control a game as complicated as an ATARI game, or Mario Bros., will have much better self-control than one that doesn't.
I really wish I hadn't quit with it, but going back and forth between my home town and college made that impossible at the time.
No, really. I have. In fact, this is not very uncommon, the only difference here is that the EEG was used to control an ATARI, instead of pre-written (for the EEG) PC games. I used to do Neuro-feedback therepy, which mostly consisted of sitting in a chair, and controlling various objects on screen. Most of them were simple things like getting a ball on a teeter-totter to move back and forth (which I could finally do). The theory is that once a person learns to subconciously change their own brainwave pattern, they're more easily able to overcome anxiety, depression, ADD, and other related syndromes. It was actually a really refreshing experience, I would walk out, every day, as if my mental state had just been wiped clean, which was great.
Anyway, I was only able to do it for about 2 months or so, and by that point, I could already control some things onscreen just by thinking about it. Eventually, you're neurons are routed so that thinking "go right" causes whatever criteria is neccessary to achieve that (say, lowered beta frequency waves) to automatically happen. If you were to do it for a good year or so, it seems quite probable that you could do something as complicated as play Mario Bros. on an EEG.
What I'm most interested in, though, as an electronic musician, is the ability to play music from an EEG... via something like Max/MSP... it wouldn't be too difficult to do, and eventually, you're just sitting there, thinking the notes, and they just play, once you've trained yourself, enough.
Dude, I love Hackett's style, but I'm only familiar with him from Genesis, haven't checked out his solo stuff yet. I have heard the re-recorded sessions he did with John Wetton, doing old Genesis and Krimson tunes, and it blew my mind. Anyone who thinks that it was Gabrial who put the prog into Genesis should be shot (no offense to Peter), it was Hackett all along... hence great stuff like Los Endos.
That said, I don't think there's much hope for Hackett, I think you're more likely to see Steve Howe on there, just simply by name recognition. Even in guitar circles, you don't hear about Hackett enough. When it comes to prog, you hear about Petrucci about 90% of the time, maybe a little Steve Howe, Alex Lifeson, David Gilmour, and more recently Roine Stolt, and then you have the Vai/Malmstein/Satriani crowd, but let's face it, for band players, there's noone more commonly talked about for technical prowess than Petrucci. Walk into any guitar center, and I can almost guarentee you'll hear someone playing some kind of Dream Theater lick.
The bottom line is, though, that Guitar Hero isn't made for guitarists, in fact, guitarists are going to be kinda excluded, because most of them can already play the real thing (I say "most" because... well, there's LOTS of guitarists who can't play out there). And you're only going to get the biggest, most highly known hard rock and metal hits. Still, I think Metropolis, or even one of their more commercial tunes like Lie or Pull Me Under would make a great "bonus" track for GH.
If we get any prog at all in GH, it's not going to immediately be obscure stuff like solo Hackett, Camel, or even Flower Kings, the most we can hope for is Rush (which we got) and Dream Theater... and maybe some Yes, although it'll probably be either Roundabout or Owner of a Lonely Heart (Rabin-era, blech!)
YYZ... HELL YEAH!
Still, I'm pissed at the distinct lack of any Dream Theater. Some of Petrucci's riffs would be fucking awesome for extremely advanced modes.
Ditto.
Xenosaga: Good anime, crappy game.
There are games that have dramatic dinner-table scenes in them, actually, check out any game in the Grandia series, where over half of the interesting character interaction takes place during dinner table conversations. Granted, these are only mildly interactive, so some may rightly point out that they're simply an extension of cinema/television stuck into a game. However, videogames ARE exactly that, a melting pot of media, just as cinema and television combine theatre with music as well as some new elements (such as the ability to instantaniously change the time & space of actions). Games are simply another melting pot media, only this time cinema is one of the included forms. Games are no different than cinema in the regard that they take previously explored media, put them together, and in doing so also bring some new elements to the table as well, "interactivity" being one of these.
I really like what a poster wrote a few posts up, when he compared the current state of games to the infancy of television (during its first 30 or so years), if you think about it, until Luciel Ball came around, TV was pretty piss poor, it took a long time for TV to get off the ground. Now, we have shows like LOST and Law & Order that can hold its own compared to its cinematic counterparts. Similarly, Cinema was little more than recorded theatre - sound for quite some time. It takes time for a new media to recognize it's unique elements and to properly figure out how to exploit them. I think we're doing that now with games, but it's still in its infancy.
I think what the Sopranos creator is refering to, specifically, is HIS game, the Sopranos game. And OF COURSE its going to be a lesser. A large majority of all arts/entertainment that takes a piece from one media and attempts to translate it to another FAILS. Cinema only started getting it right with literature in the past 30 or so years, and still they fail much of the time. I can probably count, on one hand, the number of TV shows made from movies that were equal to or better than their counterparts (Stargate SG1 is the only one that comes to mind, actually). No game movie EVER has come close to being as good as its respective game.
Don't forget The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway!
No, but seriously, time is a good filter. Usually the higher end of things tend to be remembered, at least all the crap gets forgotten. As big as Disturbed are, in 20 years, hardly ANYONE will remember who they are. If you really think back to the early 80s in gaming, there was a whole lot of shit out there... I'm a proponant to think that creativity is pretty constant among humans... no matter how corporate we get, or how primative we become, there's usually always about the same amount of truly inspiring things out there, and it may take decades for it to get all sorted out, which is why you are guarenteed at least some semblance of quality if you look back at stuff in the past.
No, that's not it. There are only 6 lines above that are not drawn (NTSC is technically 720x486)... that's not counting the emergency safe zone (about 20 pixels, or so, on either side and top and bottom that are obscurred by the frame of the TV set... yes, a standard NTSC actually only desplays about 680x440 due to the emergency safe zone). But standard NTSC resolution, as it is talked about, is 720x480, with 6 overscan lines (which includes things like closed captioning, frame sync, and fun things like that). What I was refering to was however, was the horizontal resolution change. NTSC sets use rectangular pixels, where the width is 90% of the height, to achieve a 4:3 ratio, instead of being 640x480, it's 720x480. Since many of Apple's shows are going to be played on NTSC-standard TVs, 640x480 is going to look squashed. Not that I'm ANY advocate of NTSC by any means, it's a dated, overcomplicated, low quality, and irrelivent standard that should have been done away with a long time ago. Square pixels, progressive scan, and higher resolution are LONG overdue. I'm a TV producer, and I hate dealing with NTSC... every time I make a graphic, I have to use a setting in Photoshop, or whatever program I'm using, to squash it. It makes no sense to me why they chose to use a rectangular pixel geometery.
Wait, what the hell kind of standard is 640x480? NTSC is 720x480. Why would they change the resolution?
lol, the only game I actually STOPPED PLAYING due to terrible voice acting. And I've played Star Ocean 2, so that says A LOT! It also has the honor of being the only game I've ever sold back. What a game... what a fucking disaster! It didn't help that all the voices sounded like they were recorded inside a tin can. I know they were trying to get the effect that you were some spectoral being listening in from another plane... but couldn't they have figured out a better way of representing this than adding reverb that sounded like it came out of a casio keyboard? As an audio producer, it was offensive, as a someone who does a lot of voiceovers and voiceacting, it was also offensive, and as someone who simply appreciates dialog that doesn't sound like it was written by 3rd graders, it was offensive. When I heard, "Skies of Arcadia meets a card-based system" I really got my hopes up... God, what a disaster!
That's because they've taken off the left blinker on their trucks.
That's NOT a very good analogy. GTA and Maddan are basically dead in Japan (and never really lived), I don't even know whether Maddan is released over there. On the flip side, Final Fantasy does VERY WELL over here, in fact, moves quite a few more units than in Japan... even though the per-capita offering is much smaller. With the newly revived interest in Dragon Quest, due to the popularity of DQ8, you can bank on them caring a lot more about the US than ever. Japanese RPGs do pretty well over here, they tend to come up with about the same amount of frequency as do Maddan and GTA games, which is why more and more RPGs are being localized, even though the addition of voiceacting makes this process much more costly nowadays.
The US is much more arrogant about what it cares about than even Japan (and yes, Japan is very arrogant), there's not much of a comparison between companies like EA and Square.
Star Ocean 3 was rediculous...ly bad. It got so much hype an praise, and having loved SO2, I was really hoping for something special. Instead, the battle system, which really is the only reason for playing a SO game, was incredibly badly designed, combersomb, and frusterating. On top of that, the story was shit (hackneyed cliche after cliche, and not even done well), the dialog was cringe-worthy, the characters were flat and didn't exude any feeling, and worst of all, the camera angle made navigation so confusing, that it forced me to play the game with the transparent map over the screen the ENTIRE GAME, which pretty much kills any ingame graphics.
Have you played Grandia 3? I saw you mentioned Grandia 2, so I thought I'd mention it. Where-as, overall, I was much more drawn to the characters and dialog in Grandia 2 (Cam Clarke as Ryudo helped that as well), I have to say, the battle system in Grandia 3 is perfection! It does make more sense to have the progress done in a circular dial as opposed to a bar, and there's some added ways of cancelling enemies that really work well. I think it's safe to say that for stop time battle systems (including FFs ATB varient), hell, any RPG battle system, Grandia 3s is the best, most fun, and most involving without getting rediculously complex. I just wish the characters and dialog were to the calliber of its predicessor.
I've played most of the FF games, FF1, and then FF4-10. And while FF10 is probably easier than FF1, they drastically ratcheted up the difficulty from 6-9 (my favorite games in the series). Sure, you were fully healed at every save point, but many times you couldn't GET to the next save point, because after a long and gruelling dungeon, there would be a boss MUCH harder than anything FF6-9 gave us. Sometimes there was a save point before the boss, sometimes there wasn't, but I remember dieing several times during the Yunalesca battle, and quite a few during some of the harder Seymour battles (not the final one, that was easy). Where-as, I don't think I even know what the FF7 death screen looks like.
Look out for FF12, because I've heard the game is INSANELY difficult. FF4 hard-type was probably the most difficult FF game I've played, and from the sound of it FF12 might be harder. Of course, that isn't always a good thing, after all, Star Ocean 3 was also really difficult.
I was just writing about this above. Actually, voice-recognition has progressed considerably in the last few years, due to handhelds. Cellphone voice recognition is practically standard, now days. There's a few problems with bridging the gap over to desktop computers (less with laptops, though), the main one being that most people don't have a mic built into their system. Companies have TRIED with mics built into monitors, but that hasn't seemed to fly, except in the Mac world.
These kinds of things scare me. People become faster with computers as they learn repetative operations. Even if something is a little more confusing than you would expect it to be, people become quick at it because they know how to do it. Placing the printer icon in a different place after a certain operation may speed up operation, in theory, but it leaves the user constantly guessing as to where the options are going to be placed next. I'm all for customization, but let ME do the customizing, through actually doing the customizing, I then learn exactly where things are. Traditionally, AIs have always been very bad at trying to figure out as to what users want to do, and usually make the operation much more difficult as a result. Take arrow "Snap To", for an example. The thing is supposed to figure out where I want to click next, in a dialog box. At the same time, every time it auto snaps, I'm left going "what the hell just happened?" and searching for the arrow. which takes a lot longer than physically moving over to the dialog box and clicking the button. If anything, I think computers try too much to figure out what you REALLY want to do, and most of the time it's either disorienting, or just feels patronizing.
Voice recognition is getting so good nowdays, as a result of handheld devices (I no longer dial numbers on my cellphone anymore, I just say the name of the person I'm calling), I think we'll start to see voice recognition GUIs here within the next few years, at least on handhelds. The keyboard may then eventually go the way of the dinosaur as an unneccessary paripheral. We'll always see new little GUI gadgets, some of them good (Expose), and some of them bad (Clippy), I don't mind having new options for how I run my system... as long as I can turn off or ignore the ones I don't want.
yeah, that was probably a bit harsh. It's just annoying when I hear people complain about their iPod getting scratched up. Well, duh. I don't have any problem with people not using a case, just don't complain about it. You've taken measures to protect yours, which is all I was saying.
My thoughts were that most iPod cases come with a belt clip and many people are searching for a way to mount their iPod in the car... so why not just combine the two, and mount a loop or clip system on the dash of the car? It's been extremely convenient for me.
I'm not quite sure where you are refering to, "here"... do you live in the US or somewhere else? American drivers are pretty bad, and I hate the driving attitude in the US, although I've heard some statistics that most European countries have far worse accident rates, and that cell phone driving is even worse over there. No, Americans just eat in the car all the time (and everywhere else, for that matter).
I really really really really really really really hate DVDs. Too bad they're the standard these days.
Seriously, are CDs the same way, do you have to pay anyone a license fee for a CD player to play music CDs?