Actually the certification of the games mean that they run as well or better than on the original Xbox. Better quality video output and potentially higher framerate (assuming it isn't locked in code). Besides that gameplay should be identical.
Well, of course they get the big demanding games running first and a lot of the others will work automagically. But that's why I was expecting a much larger percentage. Well, at least there are no launch titles that are really pulling at my wallet yet and I'm far from done with my current catalogue, so 360 will have to wait. Let's hope Revolution doesn't get out before I'm ready to upgrade or I bet 360 will have to wait a while longer. Mmmm Sin & Punishment ^_^
It's probably not as easy as you make it seem though. Remember when Bleem! wanted to release a full Playstation emulator for Dreamcast? Then something like 5 discs with support for a group of games... then finally a handful of games were supported with one Bleem! disc per game. Full compatibility is a difficult thing to do, but if there's any company in the world that has the resources to do this properly, it's Microsoft.
Just to give you an idea of how bad it looks at the moment, here is my collection divided into working and not working:
Working: Amped, Colin McRae '04, Dead or Alive 3, Fable, Forza Motorsport, Fusion Frenzy, Halo, Halo 2, Jade Empire, Phantom Crash, Sega GT 2002, Knights of the Old Republic, Knights of the Old Republic 2, The Thing
Not working: The Bard's Tale, Blood Wake, Burnout, Dead or Alive Ultimate, Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair, Morrowind, F1 Career Challenge, Project Zero, Gunvalkyrie, Knockout Kings 2002, Links 2004, Mechassault, Outlaw Golf, OutRun 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantasy Star Online I+II, Project Gotham Racing 2, Rainbow Six 3, Rallisport Challenge 2. Jet Set Radio, Serious Sam, Shenmue 2, Splinter Cell, Taito Legends, Unreal Championship, Wreckless, Yager
And here I was thinking "oh, ok, a couple of my games won't work... worst case scenario half won't work". This is just crazy though. I hope they boost the compatibility in a big way, or I just can't see my self upgrading, since that would mean I would have to keep the current black box under the tv as well.
Let's see... Jedi Knight 1+2, Star Wars (vector arcade classic), Rogue Squadron 1+2+3, Dark Forces 1+2, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter, Episode 1 Racer (not great, but ok), Knights of the Old Republic 1+2, Battlefront 1+2, Return of the Jedi... (notice the amounts of fine sequels)
And those were just the games I've tried. I'm sure there are more out of the huge list of Star Wars games that I haven't tried that are perfectly good games.
It's somehow en vogue to think the majority of Star Wars titles suck, even though the hit/miss ratio is pretty good - especially for a movie license.
Now bad movies based on good games on the other hand... don't get me started on thoes.
There are many classical works that are longer than a track, but shorter than a CD.
Which is exactly why the "join tracks" option is there. It's up to the users if tracks should be split up or be gapless. That was my original point.
Poor tagging is a problem regardless of how you do things, but I suppose a couple of smart playlists could help immensely (search for composer in several fields etc).
Yes, that is what I was saying. This feature is not made with classical music in mind. Understandably so, as the consumer base is mainly into pop music.
Or jazz or metal or punk or j-pop or world music or d'n'b or electronica or country or blues or...
Actually, most people are into more than one kind of music:)
Why would you need to organize a playlist for each cd?
Music / Album and you have the exact same structure as on the physical cd (as long as you don't choose shuffle).
Oh, and in iTunes under advanced lurks a small menu item called "join cd tracks" which lets you choose if some tracks should remain joined after import. It's been there for ages too.
As for the iPod Shuffle... just choose that it shouldn't shuffle and that will play your classical music the way you want it. Of course it would be rather silly to buy a shuffle if you intend to listen to albums from beginning to end, but that's just my perspective.
And of course the wikipedia article mentions a lot of the *actual* roots - unlike Keygrip (not to underestimate its value, but these kinds of things have been around much longer than Quake).
Since I'm glad it's not, I would recommend you keep your money for games with a less subtle appeal.
So you're saying you're playing the same game over again?
Sarcasm aside I obviously meant it would be different in the sense that I'd find it interesting. The premise is certainly different and unlike Ico it seems like a rather unique concept, which is why it has my attention. Not that there are as far between unique games as there used to be (for a long while).
Don't think it will get any cheaper. If anything the price will go up.
Games from the 8 and 16 bit era are selling for huge amounts if the condition is mint. Even Saturn and Playstation games can fetch ridiculous amounts (go look for Dodonpachi, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Radiant Silvergun to see what I mean).
I bet Ico will become somewhat of a collector's item as well.
I sold mine. The only thing I miss is the beautiful cover. That was truly spectacular even though it was a rip-off apparently (saw it compared with an original painting some time later)
In my books Ico is one of the most overrated games for the PS2. Sure, it's got a very special look and technically it's well executed, but the game itself was fairly standard fare and felt much like a mixture of Sleepwalker and Prince of Persia (of course it's worth mentioning that neither of those games had been redone in 3D at the time). I guess the game just never connected with me.
I hope Shadow of the Colossus will be different, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The concept is at least interesting and fairly unique this time and the graphics are breathtaking for a PS2 game.
Or are you one of those people that always wears the same pair of jeans, sneakers, and black turtlenecks, because you know, you don't care about aesthetics?
You're asking him if he's Steve Jobs? Oh, hang on, he does care about aesthetics doesn't he? ^_^
What I really like about Serious Sam is that it's sort of a mix of my still-favourite FPS games: Duke 3D and the two original DOOM games.
It has Duke cheese written all over it - which is a good thing in my book - and is one of the most arcade-like first person shooters around.
Personally I'm tired of the oh-so-realistic games and just want something that's crazy, exaggerated and comic-like. Oh, and fast. Serious Sam delivers. It's the Sonic of FPSes pretty much.
There are lots of people this sort of game won't appeal to, but it's a fresh breath of air to me.
I just did a search for Nick Park on the Danish iTMS and it didn't find anything. Did she decide to only distribute inside the US and if so why?
(I'm just curious about how some of the deals work - some of my favourite labels aren't available in the Danish store either even though they are in the US store)
I can't respond on behalf of the GP, but for me it's about instant gratification. If I can buy a single episode and get it straight away, that's what I'll do - if it's a currently running series and I'm too busy to wait for a dvd box set.
I just had to wait a month from finding out about the BBC sitcom Extras to being able to watch it - and that wait was extremely annoying, because I'd already watched the clips on the microsite and it looked really good. In the end I obviously had to wait for the dvd.
Now, had it been available on iTunes I would have bought it straight away after seeing those clips, because I wanted to see it and I wanted it *now*. I could also see myself buying stuff on fridays or saturdays, when the next parcel delivery is soooo far away (monday).
There's a nice video summary of the project. I have the book lying around and look forward to reading it. It will have to wait till after my dissertation though. Sigh.
Actually that's pretty standard fare in shmup-land. Ever since the Saturn in fact. Scaled sprites combined with 3D environments or all-3D environments weren't uncommon. The R-Type series has also had several 3D versions and GigaWing 2 for Dreamcast is probably the most extravagant shooter I've ever seen (very short, but very replayable).
You can check out www.shmups.com for a fairly comprehensive guide to shoot 'em ups.
"but there's still progress to make before we're producing the game equivalent of sixteenth century marbles"
Not really. Experimentation with fancy technology won't win the hearts of the masses - good ideas will. That was true for marbles and that is also true for games today. Down the road people won't look back at Far Cry, Half Life 2 or other technological wonders as marvels. Nor will they look at the wonderfully wacky world of Viewtiful Joe, Jet Set Radio or other stylized creations.
If you want to look at the modern day marbles, look at Tetris. It's beautiful in its simplicity and that's what made it an instant classic.
I loved Emusic before they were bought out. Back then there was a flat-rate billing system too - but unlimited downloads. That exposed me to lots of music that I wouldn't have heard otherwise. With 40 tracks a month I don't really care about it. Emusic was all about volume and selection for me. Now I use iTMS because it's more convenient, has a wider selection (most of my favourite labels from Emusic have also signed up with iTMS) and is easier to use - even if it's more expensive.
If Emusic were to change back to their old business model - a higher maximum number of tracks would also be ok, but 40 is a joke when you want to try things out for size - I'd be back in a jiffy.
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Actually the certification of the games mean that they run as well or better than on the original Xbox. Better quality video output and potentially higher framerate (assuming it isn't locked in code). Besides that gameplay should be identical.
Well, of course they get the big demanding games running first and a lot of the others will work automagically. But that's why I was expecting a much larger percentage. Well, at least there are no launch titles that are really pulling at my wallet yet and I'm far from done with my current catalogue, so 360 will have to wait. Let's hope Revolution doesn't get out before I'm ready to upgrade or I bet 360 will have to wait a while longer. Mmmm Sin & Punishment ^_^
It's probably not as easy as you make it seem though. Remember when Bleem! wanted to release a full Playstation emulator for Dreamcast? Then something like 5 discs with support for a group of games... then finally a handful of games were supported with one Bleem! disc per game. Full compatibility is a difficult thing to do, but if there's any company in the world that has the resources to do this properly, it's Microsoft.
Just to give you an idea of how bad it looks at the moment, here is my collection divided into working and not working:
Working:
Amped, Colin McRae '04, Dead or Alive 3, Fable, Forza Motorsport, Fusion Frenzy, Halo, Halo 2, Jade Empire, Phantom Crash, Sega GT 2002, Knights of the Old Republic, Knights of the Old Republic 2, The Thing
Not working:
The Bard's Tale, Blood Wake, Burnout, Dead or Alive Ultimate, Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair, Morrowind, F1 Career Challenge, Project Zero, Gunvalkyrie, Knockout Kings 2002, Links 2004, Mechassault, Outlaw Golf, OutRun 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantasy Star Online I+II, Project Gotham Racing 2, Rainbow Six 3, Rallisport Challenge 2. Jet Set Radio, Serious Sam, Shenmue 2, Splinter Cell, Taito Legends, Unreal Championship, Wreckless, Yager
And here I was thinking "oh, ok, a couple of my games won't work... worst case scenario half won't work". This is just crazy though. I hope they boost the compatibility in a big way, or I just can't see my self upgrading, since that would mean I would have to keep the current black box under the tv as well.
Let's see... Jedi Knight 1+2, Star Wars (vector arcade classic), Rogue Squadron 1+2+3, Dark Forces 1+2, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter, Episode 1 Racer (not great, but ok), Knights of the Old Republic 1+2, Battlefront 1+2, Return of the Jedi... (notice the amounts of fine sequels)
And those were just the games I've tried. I'm sure there are more out of the huge list of Star Wars games that I haven't tried that are perfectly good games.
It's somehow en vogue to think the majority of Star Wars titles suck, even though the hit/miss ratio is pretty good - especially for a movie license.
Now bad movies based on good games on the other hand... don't get me started on thoes.
Which is exactly why the "join tracks" option is there. It's up to the users if tracks should be split up or be gapless. That was my original point.
Poor tagging is a problem regardless of how you do things, but I suppose a couple of smart playlists could help immensely (search for composer in several fields etc).
Or jazz or metal or punk or j-pop or world music or d'n'b or electronica or country or blues or...
Actually, most people are into more than one kind of music :)
Why would you need to organize a playlist for each cd?
Music / Album and you have the exact same structure as on the physical cd (as long as you don't choose shuffle).
Oh, and in iTunes under advanced lurks a small menu item called "join cd tracks" which lets you choose if some tracks should remain joined after import. It's been there for ages too.
As for the iPod Shuffle... just choose that it shouldn't shuffle and that will play your classical music the way you want it. Of course it would be rather silly to buy a shuffle if you intend to listen to albums from beginning to end, but that's just my perspective.
And of course the wikipedia article mentions a lot of the *actual* roots - unlike Keygrip (not to underestimate its value, but these kinds of things have been around much longer than Quake).
So you're saying you're playing the same game over again?
Sarcasm aside I obviously meant it would be different in the sense that I'd find it interesting. The premise is certainly different and unlike Ico it seems like a rather unique concept, which is why it has my attention. Not that there are as far between unique games as there used to be (for a long while).
Don't think it will get any cheaper. If anything the price will go up.
Games from the 8 and 16 bit era are selling for huge amounts if the condition is mint. Even Saturn and Playstation games can fetch ridiculous amounts (go look for Dodonpachi, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Radiant Silvergun to see what I mean).
I bet Ico will become somewhat of a collector's item as well.
I sold mine. The only thing I miss is the beautiful cover. That was truly spectacular even though it was a rip-off apparently (saw it compared with an original painting some time later)
In my books Ico is one of the most overrated games for the PS2. Sure, it's got a very special look and technically it's well executed, but the game itself was fairly standard fare and felt much like a mixture of Sleepwalker and Prince of Persia (of course it's worth mentioning that neither of those games had been redone in 3D at the time).
I guess the game just never connected with me.
I hope Shadow of the Colossus will be different, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The concept is at least interesting and fairly unique this time and the graphics are breathtaking for a PS2 game.
You're asking him if he's Steve Jobs? Oh, hang on, he does care about aesthetics doesn't he? ^_^
What I really like about Serious Sam is that it's sort of a mix of my still-favourite FPS games: Duke 3D and the two original DOOM games.
It has Duke cheese written all over it - which is a good thing in my book - and is one of the most arcade-like first person shooters around.
Personally I'm tired of the oh-so-realistic games and just want something that's crazy, exaggerated and comic-like. Oh, and fast. Serious Sam delivers. It's the Sonic of FPSes pretty much.
There are lots of people this sort of game won't appeal to, but it's a fresh breath of air to me.
What? You mean you don't have retinal HUD yet? And you call yourself a geek? ^_^
I just did a search for Nick Park on the Danish iTMS and it didn't find anything. Did she decide to only distribute inside the US and if so why?
(I'm just curious about how some of the deals work - some of my favourite labels aren't available in the Danish store either even though they are in the US store)
I can't respond on behalf of the GP, but for me it's about instant gratification. If I can buy a single episode and get it straight away, that's what I'll do - if it's a currently running series and I'm too busy to wait for a dvd box set.
I just had to wait a month from finding out about the BBC sitcom Extras to being able to watch it - and that wait was extremely annoying, because I'd already watched the clips on the microsite and it looked really good. In the end I obviously had to wait for the dvd.
Now, had it been available on iTunes I would have bought it straight away after seeing those clips, because I wanted to see it and I wanted it *now*. I could also see myself buying stuff on fridays or saturdays, when the next parcel delivery is soooo far away (monday).
There's a nice video summary of the project. I have the book lying around and look forward to reading it. It will have to wait till after my dissertation though. Sigh.
Actually that's pretty standard fare in shmup-land. Ever since the Saturn in fact. Scaled sprites combined with 3D environments or all-3D environments weren't uncommon. The R-Type series has also had several 3D versions and GigaWing 2 for Dreamcast is probably the most extravagant shooter I've ever seen (very short, but very replayable).
You can check out www.shmups.com for a fairly comprehensive guide to shoot 'em ups.
Actually it plays gapless when it's told to do so from iTunes. Yes, it's a bit of a chore but it works.
All online-enabled games (like Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) will come with TCP/IP-stack on carts.
The article you link to is about nifi - not wifi. DS can do both - nifi being the ad hoc-version that's used for normal multiplayer.
I think I'd stay clear of the Japanese variant of that... wi-flies. Brrr.
"but there's still progress to make before we're producing the game equivalent of sixteenth century marbles"
Not really. Experimentation with fancy technology won't win the hearts of the masses - good ideas will. That was true for marbles and that is also true for games today. Down the road people won't look back at Far Cry, Half Life 2 or other technological wonders as marvels. Nor will they look at the wonderfully wacky world of Viewtiful Joe, Jet Set Radio or other stylized creations.
If you want to look at the modern day marbles, look at Tetris. It's beautiful in its simplicity and that's what made it an instant classic.
I loved Emusic before they were bought out. Back then there was a flat-rate billing system too - but unlimited downloads. That exposed me to lots of music that I wouldn't have heard otherwise. With 40 tracks a month I don't really care about it. Emusic was all about volume and selection for me. Now I use iTMS because it's more convenient, has a wider selection (most of my favourite labels from Emusic have also signed up with iTMS) and is easier to use - even if it's more expensive.
If Emusic were to change back to their old business model - a higher maximum number of tracks would also be ok, but 40 is a joke when you want to try things out for size - I'd be back in a jiffy.
Maybe you should check out the built-in e-mail client in Opera. It's quite similar to the Gmail experience.