So the main innovation in Mario Galaxy is the inclusion of gravity? Which apparently the Sonic the Friggin' Hedgehog series did better?! Did Khan slip a brain worm into you, son? Did he tell you that there was a good Sonic game past Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles? No, he didn't. So for the sake of mankind, do not play the "ailing Sonic fan" angle. And no I don't want to see the fan art you posted on Deviant Art.
OH, and Space Wars had gravity. And you know what?! It was a WHOLE LOT BETTER than Sonic Ad-Friggin'-Venture TWO.
They're big figures in the field of entertainment. And even though they're employed by Viacom, that doesn't remove their right to be critical against it. People will listen to them, and the execs at Comedy Central would be sure to defend them (mostly because the Daily Show is one of the only things still watchable on that station). I'd say it's mostly a case of some just-out-of-law-school schlub trying to garner a few credentials (before he starts chasing ambulances and advertising on 2AM about how if you've ever been injured by ANYTHING, YOU are entitled to a dump-truck filled to the brim with 1-million dollar bills). By attempting to turn two of Comedy Central's biggest figures against the conglomerate that feeds them, they'll expose any legal over-zealousness that may be occuring, which in turn will make Viacom "stfu". Hopefully.
I hate to admit it, but for the most part, Ebert's right. Not very many games (if any) have achieved a high-art status; games tend to steer away from any sort of truly artistic expression, instead focusing on pure low-level emotional experience (think of your standard FPS). Enormous amounts of death with little or no repurcussion are also present - and if a there IS a consequence, 99.9% of the time it's a hard GOOD or BAD. Drama is for the most part completely absent, and when it exists it barely reaches the quality of a throwaway soap opera. Yes, there are well-written games (stuff by Black Isle/whoever made The Longest Journey), but they never force you to truly extrapolate on the concepts that they're laying out.
Not to say that this doesn't expose Ebert as a whiney old coot. His decision to rail on Clive Barker (read: easy target) is especially telling. But that doesn't change the fact that the most a video game will make you contemplate what it means to be a person or what a person is capable of being is a quick glance at a STAT menu.
Peter Molyneux really should've released "The Room" for these reasons. A surreal playground like that would open a lot of people's eyes to just how affecting a "game" can be.
I'm not sure why many Western countries are obssessed with updating to electronic voting systems. They're 1) expensive, 2) very easily breached, 3) widely distrusted, 4) made by morally vacuous people (i.e. Diebold), 5) leave little to no paper trail most of the time, & 6) difficult to figure out in some instances (I'm talking about elderly people here). "eVoting" should be tossed out the window and replaced with something much, much more reliable - like a nationally standardized system for paper votes, counted and recounted by hand, and stored in a place - in the originally submitted order - where they can be easily recounted.
I don't know how many people here actually, you know, checked the site or anything, but even under the "humor" tag, it's ~75% hardcore pornography - which is great if you're an incorrigible porn addict, but for, say, anyone with a modicum of taste, this site is less than useless. Unless they implement some way for people to edit which results get shown first, or a method to automatically drop images into some "unscrupulous/desperate porn site owner spamming images" section, this thing is DOA.
This could be great for amateur robotics. Instead of painstakingly programming the subtle nuances of motion into a robotic arm/leg/whatever, perform the movement via WiiMote and record the motion. Although I'm sure people have been using similar methods for ages, using a Wii only requires an investment of 250 USD. Plus tax. Plus Zelda (purely for scientific purposes).
I hate to admit it, but the PS3 is looking better all the time. Aside from Gears of War and a few other select X360 games, content on that system seems to be running dry, and the trend seems to be bleeding over into the Xbox Live Marketplace as well. Launch titles downloadable and non, the PS3 seems to have a much more (hate to use the buzzword) "NEXT GEN" approach so far. And outside the launch window, the potential is better than Microsoft's. Too bad nobody will be able to afford a PS3 until 2009.
Memory consumption, for one. I've had situations where, upon running the app FRESH, it's shit all over 70 megs of my memory - on RC3. And on/. alone. Opera in the same environment only uses ~30, and even IE, heaven forbid, uses less. Although RC3 does look mighty swanky, I'll take Opera's modular approach to aesthetics any day - let's just hope the gents from Norway get those compatibility problems taken care of (infinitely expanding pages, anyone?).
Some nice new features (no, I didn't RTFA):
-auto spellcheck (GREAT idea, especially for your typical slashdotter)
-session saving (although Opera beat it to the punch like, well, everything else(aww snap -1 troll))
I have been anticipating this game since it was announced a decade ago, but I find it strange that instead of porting it to the DS, whose hardware much more closely matches that of the 64DD, they instead opted to make what I'm assuming to be an entirely original version for the GBA. According to what I've read, they already had developed most of the game - also, a lot of the gameplay was based around the added hardware the 64DD provided (such as the internal clock, the increased RAM, and the larger cartridge size). Yes, Mr. Itoi stated that his team was having a lot of difficulty transitioning the game from a 2d to a 3d environment, but you think 5 years would be enough time for that. Too bad we'll never have access to the true original version. Well, maybe on the Revolution's Virtual Console... >:^D
I've played the demos, and I can assure you that they're really, really good. The controller feels great, the system's incomprehensibly sexy, and the wireless capabilities of the system prevent the wireless inventory handsets used by Wal Mart associates from working within 60 feet. They actually shut off the demo I was playing so they could finish ordering. So much for customer service, eh?
Here's the breakdown: King Kong: amazing graphics, but it was so brief I couldn't really get a feel for the gameplay. A fantastic tech demo for next-gen system capabilities. Call of Duty 2: graphics comparable to Valve's Source engine, which is disappointing, but so well done it really doesn't matter. Keeps the hectic CoD pace intact. Also, it runs at an unerring 60fps, no matter what. I tried everything I could to get the framerate to drop, but believe me, it isn't possible. Kameo: I didn't play this game because Rare sucks now. Grabbed by the Ghoulies? I'll grab YOUR Ghoulies, whoever came up with the concept for that shit burger.
Playing the piano requires rhythm, finesse, and in a lot of cases, a life time of study. I could type quickly and well without looking several months after I began. Also, the last time I checked - and I check often - you can't delete notes you're playing.
Slashdot Mirror
Am I the only one who found the name Sodomsky fitting? Although I guess Sodomandgomorrahsky would be better.
OH, and Space Wars had gravity. And you know what?! It was a WHOLE LOT BETTER than Sonic Ad-Friggin'-Venture TWO.
They're big figures in the field of entertainment. And even though they're employed by Viacom, that doesn't remove their right to be critical against it. People will listen to them, and the execs at Comedy Central would be sure to defend them (mostly because the Daily Show is one of the only things still watchable on that station). I'd say it's mostly a case of some just-out-of-law-school schlub trying to garner a few credentials (before he starts chasing ambulances and advertising on 2AM about how if you've ever been injured by ANYTHING, YOU are entitled to a dump-truck filled to the brim with 1-million dollar bills). By attempting to turn two of Comedy Central's biggest figures against the conglomerate that feeds them, they'll expose any legal over-zealousness that may be occuring, which in turn will make Viacom "stfu". Hopefully.
Not to say that this doesn't expose Ebert as a whiney old coot. His decision to rail on Clive Barker (read: easy target) is especially telling. But that doesn't change the fact that the most a video game will make you contemplate what it means to be a person or what a person is capable of being is a quick glance at a STAT menu.
Peter Molyneux really should've released "The Room" for these reasons. A surreal playground like that would open a lot of people's eyes to just how affecting a "game" can be.
I'm not sure why many Western countries are obssessed with updating to electronic voting systems. They're 1) expensive, 2) very easily breached, 3) widely distrusted, 4) made by morally vacuous people (i.e. Diebold), 5) leave little to no paper trail most of the time, & 6) difficult to figure out in some instances (I'm talking about elderly people here). "eVoting" should be tossed out the window and replaced with something much, much more reliable - like a nationally standardized system for paper votes, counted and recounted by hand, and stored in a place - in the originally submitted order - where they can be easily recounted.
I don't know how many people here actually, you know, checked the site or anything, but even under the "humor" tag, it's ~75% hardcore pornography - which is great if you're an incorrigible porn addict, but for, say, anyone with a modicum of taste, this site is less than useless. Unless they implement some way for people to edit which results get shown first, or a method to automatically drop images into some "unscrupulous/desperate porn site owner spamming images" section, this thing is DOA.
This could be great for amateur robotics. Instead of painstakingly programming the subtle nuances of motion into a robotic arm/leg/whatever, perform the movement via WiiMote and record the motion. Although I'm sure people have been using similar methods for ages, using a Wii only requires an investment of 250 USD. Plus tax. Plus Zelda (purely for scientific purposes).
DENIED!
I hate to admit it, but the PS3 is looking better all the time. Aside from Gears of War and a few other select X360 games, content on that system seems to be running dry, and the trend seems to be bleeding over into the Xbox Live Marketplace as well. Launch titles downloadable and non, the PS3 seems to have a much more (hate to use the buzzword) "NEXT GEN" approach so far. And outside the launch window, the potential is better than Microsoft's. Too bad nobody will be able to afford a PS3 until 2009.
Some nice new features (no, I didn't RTFA):
-auto spellcheck (GREAT idea, especially for your typical slashdotter)
-session saving (although Opera beat it to the punch like, well, everything else(aww snap -1 troll))
-security updates... ?
I have been anticipating this game since it was announced a decade ago, but I find it strange that instead of porting it to the DS, whose hardware much more closely matches that of the 64DD, they instead opted to make what I'm assuming to be an entirely original version for the GBA. According to what I've read, they already had developed most of the game - also, a lot of the gameplay was based around the added hardware the 64DD provided (such as the internal clock, the increased RAM, and the larger cartridge size). Yes, Mr. Itoi stated that his team was having a lot of difficulty transitioning the game from a 2d to a 3d environment, but you think 5 years would be enough time for that. Too bad we'll never have access to the true original version. Well, maybe on the Revolution's Virtual Console... >:^D
I've played the demos, and I can assure you that they're really, really good. The controller feels great, the system's incomprehensibly sexy, and the wireless capabilities of the system prevent the wireless inventory handsets used by Wal Mart associates from working within 60 feet. They actually shut off the demo I was playing so they could finish ordering. So much for customer service, eh?
Here's the breakdown:
King Kong: amazing graphics, but it was so brief I couldn't really get a feel for the gameplay. A fantastic tech demo for next-gen system capabilities.
Call of Duty 2: graphics comparable to Valve's Source engine, which is disappointing, but so well done it really doesn't matter. Keeps the hectic CoD pace intact. Also, it runs at an unerring 60fps, no matter what. I tried everything I could to get the framerate to drop, but believe me, it isn't possible.
Kameo: I didn't play this game because Rare sucks now. Grabbed by the Ghoulies? I'll grab YOUR Ghoulies, whoever came up with the concept for that shit burger.
Oh yeah, the home screen is really in-depth.
Playing the piano requires rhythm, finesse, and in a lot of cases, a life time of study. I could type quickly and well without looking several months after I began. Also, the last time I checked - and I check often - you can't delete notes you're playing.