Branson is lying. It's Air France that wanted to stop, thereby closing the whole project. The rest is part of his publicity campaign, which he knows is hopeless since Airbus (the caretakers of Concorde's technology) have indicated they will not support the aircraft any longer.
As for BA only paying a pound, that obviously does not include the highly skilled, but retiring workforce that maintained the aircraft, nor the remaining infrastructure to support it. All of which BA paid for by itself, and which VS would likely not get.
It's a job exercise to the same extent any military aircraft project is one. They're are not only about creating a product, but maintaining a skilled workforce and the necessary technology for obvious reasons. Individual European countries believed the best use of resources for building fighter aircraft was to team up, though some continue to go at it alone, notably France, but also Sweden.
MiGs are excellent aircraft, but they are not really wanted in the West. Germany for instance inherited a fleet of modern MiGs during unification, but I think they've gotten rid of them by now. Perhaps a bit of Cold War mentality, but they don't really have anything over the Eurofighter. The only real argument for buying foreign aircraft when you have the ability to create your own is cost and the results of such a decision aren't always satisfactory, as Britain found out with the whole TSR.2/F-111 debacle. Eventually the Tornado was developed to serve this role, but it still couldn't quite do what the TSR.2 would have been able to do 15 years earlier.
The Eurofighter is not a bad aircraft by any means, but it's been dogged by delays, which have been mostly due to continuous upgrades being made to the design. It's high time it was put into service though and the focus turned to the next generation...
I wonder how many of the various anti-European posters in this thread realise how much this attitude contributed to the demise of Concorde?
Concorde's development costs were never recovered, but the plane was profitable in the end, at least for British Airways. Air France always had more difficulty filling the plane and they had wanted to pull out after the Gonesse crash, but were convinced by BA to continue. Ultimately though the economics of such a small and unique fleet made making a profit difficult.
An example I've seen are the security doors required for flying in the US post 11-9. Normal airliners could have them added for say USD 25,000, but for Concorde this was 250,000. This supposedly was typical for Concorde. Maintanance was always difficult and expensive and combined with the general slump in air traffic the costs were beginning to outweigh the benefits...
The war of words between the Bush administration and the French government regarding the upcoming war on Iraq resulted in petty and childish anti-French sentiment ("freedom fries" anyone?) in the US. This also yielded even less passengers for AF to fly to and from New York, it is said that some flights only had 6 or 7 people on board (of a possible 90+).
And so, Air France finally decided to pull the plug on what was becoming a money-pit for them. However, the frogbashers cannot rejoice in their victory, because they failed to realise that once one of the two operators stopped flying Concorde, the other would have no choice but to do likewise, as an even smaller fleet was uneconomical. Regardless of whether the boycotters flew instead with BA's Concordes, their petty attitude was the straw that broke Concorde's back and one of Britain's finest technological achievements went down prematurely because of it. Concorde might have had a few years left before it would have come to its inevitable end.
While Concorde provided an influencial and necessary example for the various European manufacturers, it should not be exaggerated. Airbus was at first after all a Franco-German project (indeed the name "Airbus" was a German contribution), and it is said that one of the intitial rules was: "Look at Concorde, then do the opposite".;) And Airbus is not the only "son of Concorde", look at the Tornado or the Eurofighter.
Concorde was likely the reason why France is now the nerve centre for European aviation and why Airbus is still seen as predominantly French, rather than European which it really is. They built a new assembly building for Concorde and invested in it again when Airbus was started, resulting in final assembly of most Airbuses now being done in Toulouse, which also houses the Airbus headquarters. The Brits, who would have cancelled Concorde if the French had let them, constructed their Concordes in older facilities and joined Airbus only after it had achieved some measure of success.
They may still have the project on a backburner somewhere, but at the time Boeing simply needed something spectacular to counter the announcement of the upcoming Airbus A380, the largest airliner in the world, which will easily eclips the aging Boeing 747. They found no-one cared and that was it for the project, irrespective of what difficulty they might have encountered in building the plane.
You're making it sound like they just found out the "market" didn't support it (i.e. not enough passengers and thus not enough potential buyers) and so they bailed out in time. While this does happen in the industry, it negates two very important factors relating to the failure of the US SST: the environmental opposition, and the ever increasing problems of building it and especially its related costs.
The US was late in the game for a SST and it contributed to its eventual failure. When Kennedy announced the future SST (this was in the limitless days of the Space Race and planes such as the SR-71 or XB-70), France and Britain had already announced theirs and Juan Trippe, CEO of the very influential Pan Am airline, had already ordered some (later cancelled of course). The Americans, with considerable spending power and technological ability, decided they had to build a better plane than the Europeans and the Russians, also in light of the fact that Concorde had gotten a head-start and would be on the market sooner.
Two designs were considered, a Lockheed design that more or less resembled Concorde, and a more ambitious Boeing design, the 2707, that seemed to meet the desired super-SST specs. It was to be larger, carry more passengers, have a variable geometric wing (it could change shape) and would fly at Mach 3.0 instead of Concorde's 2.2. Concorde's speed was later adjusted to 2.0 and the 2707 reduced to Mach 2.7, but the basic difference remained: Concorde could still be built with conventional aluminium, but the 2707 would have to be made of titanium, a far more complex process.
Boeing really bit off more than they could chew. The unworkable wing was later replaced with a double delta wing, but costs were ever rising and there was precious little to show for it. Concorde hit its snags as well, but it was progressing better and it first flew in 1969, by which time the Russian Tupolev Tu-144 had also graced the skies, though it would not be destined to have a great future.
The late '60s, early '70s saw the beginning of the environmental movement and one of its targets were the SSTs. They claimed the sonic boom would be untolerable and that flying that high would expose passengers to radiation and disturb the ozone layer (I think this was the first time the public became aware of it). The latter two were disproved by Concorde, but the first resulted in a ban on flying SSTs over land, though opposition to SSTs in general continued. This was indeed a great setback and it drastically diminished the potential of the SSTs, but this I think was not the sole reason for the cancellation of the 2707, as prestige and commitments might have kept the plane going if it had been developing well.
This was not the case with the 2707. Costs were rising and this was also the timeframe (early '70s) when big aerospace projects were being scrapped or downsized. Indeed, Britain had seen most of its projects (such as the TSR.2) cancelled in 1965 and Britain would have pulled the plug on Concorde as well, but was bound by international treaty to continue should France not share this desire. Thus it was French prestige that saved the Concorde before it was even born, something which should be remembered now that the French have decided to end the adventure.
The politicians in Congress decided in 1971(?) to put an end to a programme that had produced embarrassingly little in hardware, and was popularly opposed by a well organised movement. Future sales prospects might not have been too rosy, but I think that ultimately it was the first two elements that contributed in equal amounts to the cancellation. The (relative) lack of them in Europe enabled the Concorde to go ahead, despite the lessened appeal for SSTs. Also keep in mind that this was before the oil-crisis which really made operating SSTs more expensive, as Concorde would find out. Regretably, the lack of a US competitor meant that the US was not particularly helpful in enabling foreign SSTs to fly to the US and it took years and two courtc
That's what I kinda suspected as well, thanks. It would probably also be the reason why tiny Luxembourg is not a member, whereas they usually are a founding member in many European projects.
You're right, ESA has 15 European members, but only 13 have contributed to Envisat (the 14th contributor being Canada). Since Portugal joined only last year and Envisat started in the late eighties, it's obvious why they didn't chip in, but I don't know why Ireland didn't. Though not a founding member, they got involved very shortly afterwards and would have been able to participate. Maybe they felt they couldn't contribute in a meaningful way?
Funny you should mention that. Your memory is correct. I recently saw the same cartoon, with the suicide scene intact, and thought that such cartoons wouldn't be made today... This was on Cartoon Network Europe though.
Hey, I'm not saying there aren't racing games on consoles that *you* would find difficult;) F355C is indeed a good game (from what I've heard, sorry, but I don't have a DC), but have you ever played Grand Prix Legends? Can you be fast with just a DC controller? Because you can't be with a keyboard in GPL.
Don't get me wrong, I just don't understand this whole PC vs. Console argument. I think both are in fact excellent gaming platforms (I have a top-line PC, a PSX, N64, SNES, NES and Atari 2600), it's just that some game-genres are more suited to one or the other platform due to the technical nature of the platform. To continue the sim-racing example, it's a little more difficult to use a wheel when you're in a sofa rather than behind a desk to bolt it to.
I think you're looking at games the wrong way. Gaming is not a medium where the narrative is the main objective, it is indeed about the gameplay or the quality of the interaction between the player and the game. The narrative or story is mostly just a framework to hang the game on. If you're interested in experiencing a good story (as we all are), you should look to books or film, where the entertainment lies in the effect the story, characters and scenery have on the (passive) reader/viewer.
Games do have an element of this aspect, but in my view it's the gameplay that separates a well-done game from simply a "interactive movie" or rather a "press a button to continue the story" game. Games have to engage the player, they have to present an activity, a challenge.
Now, Nintendo games have extremely sparse stories, no doubt there, but they are there. The problem many have is that Nintendo likes to make their games accesible to children rather then aim them at kids. This means they are often relatively simple and very straightforward and not very "deep" or multi-layered, qualities only adults would be able to pick up. But that does not in any way influence the gameplay negatively. Remember, it's just a framework.
I'm not into Pokémon, but I am an avid adult player of Nintendo's other hallmark franchises, Mario and Zelda. With Mario I simply don't care about the story, because it does not matter. In fact, if Mario platformers were to get a "deep" story they would perhaps cease to be true Mario platformers. Zelda actually has a somewhat fleshier story, but it's nothing too complicated. Both of these games are however full of activities, puzzles, hand-eye-coordination challenges and brain-gymnastics and that is why I enjoy them. The story in e.g. Zelda is to me just an element of the over-all style of the game, it just needs to "work" to tie the challenges together.
It's just a little unfair to expect all games to have a Ulysses-like depth to them. Tell me, don't you enjoy something like Grimm's Tales? One could say all they are is a framework to a moral.
The reason not to get the PC is because of its games. Yes, PC is best when it comes to FPS and RTS,.............If you want Racing games Gran Tourismo is the king by far,
Actually, it depends on what kind of racing games you want. If one is after Arcade like games, with good graphics and a manageable physics-engine then yes, consoles (and GT3 in particular) are an excellent choice, though something like the NFS series on the PC will provide you with a somewhat similar fix.
However, if Simulation racing is your thing, then you can't get around PCs. Sim racing revolves around providing and experiencing an as true racing environment as possible, with a reasonably accurate physics-engine and life-like controllers (like steering wheels) are almost mandatory. There still is nothing like Grand Prix Legends or Nascar 4 on any console and it's doubtful there will be due to the somewaht limited appeal those games have.
Good point, but don't mistake "announced" games for released games. There may not be a second or third generation and those games you mentioned, while graphically impressive, are mostly unknowns. If the launch fails, many of those third parties who have claimed to support the X-Box will leave it for what it is, remember there was a lot more third party support for the N64 before developers abandonned it.
Nintendo is not just it's core franchises, though they are very important. There's also plenty to come from Rare, LucasArts, and stuff like the RE move may not be a one-of-a-kind event. Nintendo will always continue to support a console, they proved that with the N64.
Likewise Sony is not going to abandon the PS2 and developers know it. Beside the guaranteed support of Square, there's also a lot riding on it for the company.
Microsoft will leave the X-Box for dead should it fail and everyone knows it. Sure MS is in it for the long haul, but it may very well take the X-Box 2 or 3 before they succeed. Meanwhile, why should a consumer buy a machine that may be obsolete in a short time with nothing but several very pretty games on it? Microsoft still has an unproven record when it comes to consoles or first party games. I'm not saying the X-Box will definitely fail, especially if it's supported by some of MS' strong-arm tactics, but there's absolutely no reason to assume it will either succeed or have a big impact.
I am following it pretty closely and the only "killer app" it has is Halo. The rest of the games you quote are either ports available elsewhere (Madden, Silent Hill, MGS, THPS), games that are way overhyped (like Munch and DOA3) or games about which it's simply unknown whether they will be a great success. Yes, the X-Box has a pretty extensive (in quantity) launch line-up, but what about after the launch? There's a good chance the X-Box will run out of steam should the launch not go as expected, whereas both Nintendo and Sony have made it clear that lots more is still on the horizon.
It is only the most powerful game console in the world. You're right, that's about all it is (and even then only on raw specs).
While I certainly wouldn't rule out a small amount of Slashdot's anti-MS bias regarding X-Box articles, the fact remains that for a lot of people, or rather gamers, the X-Box isn't the next big thing. The hype surrounding it may be huge, but it doesn't take much to start to see through it. It simply isn't that impressive.
Ah yes, Old Men trying to come to terms with New Things. They'll likely never get it, but they will try to suppress it. Never grow "old", boys and girls, which has little to do with age.
Nice troll dude, but I'll bite (haven't got anything better to do):
You like running back and forth across the same areas because the game design is such that any two consecutive events are the maximum distance apart?
Zelda's overworld is such that there usually is a central area with dungeon-areas dotted around it. You call it "running back and forth", I call it exploration. You really don't have to travel that much, providing you don't rush things and act on hints when they appear.
Or maybe you like running around pulling up bushes for hours collecting enough coins to buy some necessary item?
I don't know what games you're comparing Zelda to, but The Quest For Mo'Money has always been a part of these types of game. And there are far better and quicker ways to collect money than wacking bushes. Just going through a dungeon will furnish you with plenty of cash.
Or, in Z64, perhaps you love the Tomb Raider-esque camera that swings around at inconvenient moments, rarely shows the things you need to see, and the hideous control system for manually moving the camera?
Here I knew you were trolling;-). If there is one thing Zelda: OoT got right, it was the camera. You honestly cannot compare it to Tomb Raider in any way. It did not swing around, and you only had one control to adjust the camera, which was all that was needed. Zelda's Z-Lock mechanism was revolutionary, you'll be seeing it more often in 3D-games, like in Z.O.E.
Maybe it's the endless reflex-based puzzles in the middle of what's billed as an RPG or an adventure?
I for the life of me don't know what you're talking about. There are SOME mini-games that require some dexterity, but puzzles are never reflex-based as far as I know. Examples?
How about the complete lack of customized character development?
Zelda is not a CRPG! It's an action-RPG or action-adventure and it cannot be compared to traditional RPGs in that way, because nobody (apart from you) thinks they are the same category of game. I bet you thought Metal Gear Solid sucked too because you couldn't customize Snake's personality?
Zelda is a lousy game,
Now, I can understand some people not liking Zelda games, because they don't like that type of game (I think you belong in that category), but you cannot call it a lousy game because of that. Zelda's game design is excellent, it could serve as a template for a course on game-design. It is why these games receive such high notes, they are truely masterpieces of game-design.
loved only by people who haven't seen the depth that's possible in a PC game.
No way, I love my PC and I prefer it as a gaming machine, but there is nothing like Zelda or Mario on the PC. Nintendo is one of the best game-studios in the world, but they don't develop for PC. The quality of a game is not determined by its depth, but by the quality of gameplay or the funfactor and Nintendo games are very "deep" in that.
(Where a save-game can store the state of the world, not just the number of EXP and GOLD that you found.)
Again I wonder what game you've been playing, because Zelda does have a changing world-state as you progress, while it has nothing like EXP (experience points).
Seriously, in the adventure/rpg (well, almost anything except fighting or racing games) PCs blow away consoles
No they don't, they just have some different types of adventures/RPGs. You apparently prefer the PC style, which is fine, but don't knock the console versions. They provide as high a quality of games as PCs. I personally like PC RPGs very much, but they aren't the same type of game as Final Fantasy or Zelda games.
And you're wrong about racing games as well. Fighting games pretty much only exist on consoles, but PCs are far better racing game machines. Both are about par in arcade racers, but PCs excel in sim racers. There's nothing like Grand Prix Legends on consoles.
I pray to Miyamoto above that this will never happen. Zelda games have been goddamn near perfection for many years, I don't wanna see the inevitable downslide until after Miyamoto dies;-)
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Branson is lying. It's Air France that wanted to stop, thereby closing the whole project. The rest is part of his publicity campaign, which he knows is hopeless since Airbus (the caretakers of Concorde's technology) have indicated they will not support the aircraft any longer.
As for BA only paying a pound, that obviously does not include the highly skilled, but retiring workforce that maintained the aircraft, nor the remaining infrastructure to support it. All of which BA paid for by itself, and which VS would likely not get.
It's a job exercise to the same extent any military aircraft project is one. They're are not only about creating a product, but maintaining a skilled workforce and the necessary technology for obvious reasons. Individual European countries believed the best use of resources for building fighter aircraft was to team up, though some continue to go at it alone, notably France, but also Sweden.
MiGs are excellent aircraft, but they are not really wanted in the West. Germany for instance inherited a fleet of modern MiGs during unification, but I think they've gotten rid of them by now. Perhaps a bit of Cold War mentality, but they don't really have anything over the Eurofighter. The only real argument for buying foreign aircraft when you have the ability to create your own is cost and the results of such a decision aren't always satisfactory, as Britain found out with the whole TSR.2/F-111 debacle. Eventually the Tornado was developed to serve this role, but it still couldn't quite do what the TSR.2 would have been able to do 15 years earlier.
The Eurofighter is not a bad aircraft by any means, but it's been dogged by delays, which have been mostly due to continuous upgrades being made to the design. It's high time it was put into service though and the focus turned to the next generation...
I wonder how many of the various anti-European posters in this thread realise how much this attitude contributed to the demise of Concorde?
Concorde's development costs were never recovered, but the plane was profitable in the end, at least for British Airways. Air France always had more difficulty filling the plane and they had wanted to pull out after the Gonesse crash, but were convinced by BA to continue. Ultimately though the economics of such a small and unique fleet made making a profit difficult.
An example I've seen are the security doors required for flying in the US post 11-9. Normal airliners could have them added for say USD 25,000, but for Concorde this was 250,000. This supposedly was typical for Concorde. Maintanance was always difficult and expensive and combined with the general slump in air traffic the costs were beginning to outweigh the benefits...
The war of words between the Bush administration and the French government regarding the upcoming war on Iraq resulted in petty and childish anti-French sentiment ("freedom fries" anyone?) in the US. This also yielded even less passengers for AF to fly to and from New York, it is said that some flights only had 6 or 7 people on board (of a possible 90+).
And so, Air France finally decided to pull the plug on what was becoming a money-pit for them. However, the frogbashers cannot rejoice in their victory, because they failed to realise that once one of the two operators stopped flying Concorde, the other would have no choice but to do likewise, as an even smaller fleet was uneconomical. Regardless of whether the boycotters flew instead with BA's Concordes, their petty attitude was the straw that broke Concorde's back and one of Britain's finest technological achievements went down prematurely because of it. Concorde might have had a few years left before it would have come to its inevitable end.
While Concorde provided an influencial and necessary example for the various European manufacturers, it should not be exaggerated. Airbus was at first after all a Franco-German project (indeed the name "Airbus" was a German contribution), and it is said that one of the intitial rules was: "Look at Concorde, then do the opposite". ;) And Airbus is not the only "son of Concorde", look at the Tornado or the Eurofighter.
Concorde was likely the reason why France is now the nerve centre for European aviation and why Airbus is still seen as predominantly French, rather than European which it really is. They built a new assembly building for Concorde and invested in it again when Airbus was started, resulting in final assembly of most Airbuses now being done in Toulouse, which also houses the Airbus headquarters. The Brits, who would have cancelled Concorde if the French had let them, constructed their Concordes in older facilities and joined Airbus only after it had achieved some measure of success.
They may still have the project on a backburner somewhere, but at the time Boeing simply needed something spectacular to counter the announcement of the upcoming Airbus A380, the largest airliner in the world, which will easily eclips the aging Boeing 747. They found no-one cared and that was it for the project, irrespective of what difficulty they might have encountered in building the plane.
The Boeing 7E7 looks far more promising...
You're making it sound like they just found out the "market" didn't support it (i.e. not enough passengers and thus not enough potential buyers) and so they bailed out in time. While this does happen in the industry, it negates two very important factors relating to the failure of the US SST: the environmental opposition, and the ever increasing problems of building it and especially its related costs.
The US was late in the game for a SST and it contributed to its eventual failure. When Kennedy announced the future SST (this was in the limitless days of the Space Race and planes such as the SR-71 or XB-70), France and Britain had already announced theirs and Juan Trippe, CEO of the very influential Pan Am airline, had already ordered some (later cancelled of course). The Americans, with considerable spending power and technological ability, decided they had to build a better plane than the Europeans and the Russians, also in light of the fact that Concorde had gotten a head-start and would be on the market sooner.
Two designs were considered, a Lockheed design that more or less resembled Concorde, and a more ambitious Boeing design, the 2707, that seemed to meet the desired super-SST specs. It was to be larger, carry more passengers, have a variable geometric wing (it could change shape) and would fly at Mach 3.0 instead of Concorde's 2.2. Concorde's speed was later adjusted to 2.0 and the 2707 reduced to Mach 2.7, but the basic difference remained: Concorde could still be built with conventional aluminium, but the 2707 would have to be made of titanium, a far more complex process.
Boeing really bit off more than they could chew. The unworkable wing was later replaced with a double delta wing, but costs were ever rising and there was precious little to show for it. Concorde hit its snags as well, but it was progressing better and it first flew in 1969, by which time the Russian Tupolev Tu-144 had also graced the skies, though it would not be destined to have a great future.
The late '60s, early '70s saw the beginning of the environmental movement and one of its targets were the SSTs. They claimed the sonic boom would be untolerable and that flying that high would expose passengers to radiation and disturb the ozone layer (I think this was the first time the public became aware of it). The latter two were disproved by Concorde, but the first resulted in a ban on flying SSTs over land, though opposition to SSTs in general continued. This was indeed a great setback and it drastically diminished the potential of the SSTs, but this I think was not the sole reason for the cancellation of the 2707, as prestige and commitments might have kept the plane going if it had been developing well.
This was not the case with the 2707. Costs were rising and this was also the timeframe (early '70s) when big aerospace projects were being scrapped or downsized. Indeed, Britain had seen most of its projects (such as the TSR.2) cancelled in 1965 and Britain would have pulled the plug on Concorde as well, but was bound by international treaty to continue should France not share this desire. Thus it was French prestige that saved the Concorde before it was even born, something which should be remembered now that the French have decided to end the adventure.
The politicians in Congress decided in 1971(?) to put an end to a programme that had produced embarrassingly little in hardware, and was popularly opposed by a well organised movement. Future sales prospects might not have been too rosy, but I think that ultimately it was the first two elements that contributed in equal amounts to the cancellation. The (relative) lack of them in Europe enabled the Concorde to go ahead, despite the lessened appeal for SSTs. Also keep in mind that this was before the oil-crisis which really made operating SSTs more expensive, as Concorde would find out. Regretably, the lack of a US competitor meant that the US was not particularly helpful in enabling foreign SSTs to fly to the US and it took years and two courtc
That's what I kinda suspected as well, thanks. It would probably also be the reason why tiny Luxembourg is not a member, whereas they usually are a founding member in many European projects.
You're right, ESA has 15 European members, but only 13 have contributed to Envisat (the 14th contributor being Canada). Since Portugal joined only last year and Envisat started in the late eighties, it's obvious why they didn't chip in, but I don't know why Ireland didn't. Though not a founding member, they got involved very shortly afterwards and would have been able to participate. Maybe they felt they couldn't contribute in a meaningful way?
Funny you should mention that. Your memory is correct. I recently saw the same cartoon, with the suicide scene intact, and thought that such cartoons wouldn't be made today... This was on Cartoon Network Europe though.
Hey, I'm not saying there aren't racing games on consoles that *you* would find difficult ;) F355C is indeed a good game (from what I've heard, sorry, but I don't have a DC), but have you ever played Grand Prix Legends? Can you be fast with just a DC controller? Because you can't be with a keyboard in GPL.
Don't get me wrong, I just don't understand this whole PC vs. Console argument. I think both are in fact excellent gaming platforms (I have a top-line PC, a PSX, N64, SNES, NES and Atari 2600), it's just that some game-genres are more suited to one or the other platform due to the technical nature of the platform. To continue the sim-racing example, it's a little more difficult to use a wheel when you're in a sofa rather than behind a desk to bolt it to.
I think you're looking at games the wrong way. Gaming is not a medium where the narrative is the main objective, it is indeed about the gameplay or the quality of the interaction between the player and the game. The narrative or story is mostly just a framework to hang the game on. If you're interested in experiencing a good story (as we all are), you should look to books or film, where the entertainment lies in the effect the story, characters and scenery have on the (passive) reader/viewer.
Games do have an element of this aspect, but in my view it's the gameplay that separates a well-done game from simply a "interactive movie" or rather a "press a button to continue the story" game. Games have to engage the player, they have to present an activity, a challenge.
Now, Nintendo games have extremely sparse stories, no doubt there, but they are there. The problem many have is that Nintendo likes to make their games accesible to children rather then aim them at kids. This means they are often relatively simple and very straightforward and not very "deep" or multi-layered, qualities only adults would be able to pick up. But that does not in any way influence the gameplay negatively. Remember, it's just a framework.
I'm not into Pokémon, but I am an avid adult player of Nintendo's other hallmark franchises, Mario and Zelda. With Mario I simply don't care about the story, because it does not matter. In fact, if Mario platformers were to get a "deep" story they would perhaps cease to be true Mario platformers. Zelda actually has a somewhat fleshier story, but it's nothing too complicated. Both of these games are however full of activities, puzzles, hand-eye-coordination challenges and brain-gymnastics and that is why I enjoy them. The story in e.g. Zelda is to me just an element of the over-all style of the game, it just needs to "work" to tie the challenges together.
It's just a little unfair to expect all games to have a Ulysses-like depth to them. Tell me, don't you enjoy something like Grimm's Tales? One could say all they are is a framework to a moral.
The reason not to get the PC is because of its games. Yes, PC is best when it comes to FPS and RTS,.............If you want Racing games Gran Tourismo is the king by far,
Actually, it depends on what kind of racing games you want. If one is after Arcade like games, with good graphics and a manageable physics-engine then yes, consoles (and GT3 in particular) are an excellent choice, though something like the NFS series on the PC will provide you with a somewhat similar fix.
However, if Simulation racing is your thing, then you can't get around PCs. Sim racing revolves around providing and experiencing an as true racing environment as possible, with a reasonably accurate physics-engine and life-like controllers (like steering wheels) are almost mandatory. There still is nothing like Grand Prix Legends or Nascar 4 on any console and it's doubtful there will be due to the somewaht limited appeal those games have.
Good point, but don't mistake "announced" games for released games. There may not be a second or third generation and those games you mentioned, while graphically impressive, are mostly unknowns. If the launch fails, many of those third parties who have claimed to support the X-Box will leave it for what it is, remember there was a lot more third party support for the N64 before developers abandonned it.
Nintendo is not just it's core franchises, though they are very important. There's also plenty to come from Rare, LucasArts, and stuff like the RE move may not be a one-of-a-kind event. Nintendo will always continue to support a console, they proved that with the N64.
Likewise Sony is not going to abandon the PS2 and developers know it. Beside the guaranteed support of Square, there's also a lot riding on it for the company.
Microsoft will leave the X-Box for dead should it fail and everyone knows it. Sure MS is in it for the long haul, but it may very well take the X-Box 2 or 3 before they succeed. Meanwhile, why should a consumer buy a machine that may be obsolete in a short time with nothing but several very pretty games on it? Microsoft still has an unproven record when it comes to consoles or first party games. I'm not saying the X-Box will definitely fail, especially if it's supported by some of MS' strong-arm tactics, but there's absolutely no reason to assume it will either succeed or have a big impact.
I am following it pretty closely and the only "killer app" it has is Halo. The rest of the games you quote are either ports available elsewhere (Madden, Silent Hill, MGS, THPS), games that are way overhyped (like Munch and DOA3) or games about which it's simply unknown whether they will be a great success. Yes, the X-Box has a pretty extensive (in quantity) launch line-up, but what about after the launch? There's a good chance the X-Box will run out of steam should the launch not go as expected, whereas both Nintendo and Sony have made it clear that lots more is still on the horizon.
It is only the most powerful game console in the world.
You're right, that's about all it is (and even then only on raw specs).
While I certainly wouldn't rule out a small amount of Slashdot's anti-MS bias regarding X-Box articles, the fact remains that for a lot of people, or rather gamers, the X-Box isn't the next big thing. The hype surrounding it may be huge, but it doesn't take much to start to see through it. It simply isn't that impressive.
Graphical LILO. (I installed it one hour ago...;))
Well, let's hope MSN will be first up against the wall when the revolution finally comes ;)
It should be either "Thus spoke" or "Also sprach". Using both is a little confusing, unless that was your intention of course ;-)
Weh have alreddy mooved to ze mine-schafts. Vat are yoo doing stiel above graund? Ze Microsoft Doomsday deevice wil aktivahte any moment!
Jawohl ;)
Another popular one (at least until recently) would be "Fahrvergnügen"
Technically speaking, "apartheid" is an Afrikaans word, not Dutch. Sure, Afrikaans is derived from Dutch, but it is a separate language.
Ah yes, Old Men trying to come to terms with New Things. They'll likely never get it, but they will try to suppress it. Never grow "old", boys and girls, which has little to do with age.
Nice troll dude, but I'll bite (haven't got anything better to do):
;-). If there is one thing Zelda: OoT got right, it was the camera. You honestly cannot compare it to Tomb Raider in any way. It did not swing around, and you only had one control to adjust the camera, which was all that was needed. Zelda's Z-Lock mechanism was revolutionary, you'll be seeing it more often in 3D-games, like in Z.O.E.
You like running back and forth across the same areas because the game design is such that any two consecutive events are the maximum distance apart?
Zelda's overworld is such that there usually is a central area with dungeon-areas dotted around it. You call it "running back and forth", I call it exploration. You really don't have to travel that much, providing you don't rush things and act on hints when they appear.
Or maybe you like running around pulling up bushes for hours collecting enough coins to buy some necessary item?
I don't know what games you're comparing Zelda to, but The Quest For Mo'Money has always been a part of these types of game. And there are far better and quicker ways to collect money than wacking bushes. Just going through a dungeon will furnish you with plenty of cash.
Or, in Z64, perhaps you love the Tomb Raider-esque camera that swings around at inconvenient moments, rarely shows the things you need to see, and the hideous control system for manually moving the camera?
Here I knew you were trolling
Maybe it's the endless reflex-based puzzles in the middle of what's billed as an RPG or an adventure?
I for the life of me don't know what you're talking about. There are SOME mini-games that require some dexterity, but puzzles are never reflex-based as far as I know. Examples?
How about the complete lack of customized character development?
Zelda is not a CRPG! It's an action-RPG or action-adventure and it cannot be compared to traditional RPGs in that way, because nobody (apart from you) thinks they are the same category of game. I bet you thought Metal Gear Solid sucked too because you couldn't customize Snake's personality?
Zelda is a lousy game,
Now, I can understand some people not liking Zelda games, because they don't like that type of game (I think you belong in that category), but you cannot call it a lousy game because of that. Zelda's game design is excellent, it could serve as a template for a course on game-design. It is why these games receive such high notes, they are truely masterpieces of game-design.
loved only by people who haven't seen the depth that's possible in a PC game.
No way, I love my PC and I prefer it as a gaming machine, but there is nothing like Zelda or Mario on the PC. Nintendo is one of the best game-studios in the world, but they don't develop for PC. The quality of a game is not determined by its depth, but by the quality of gameplay or the funfactor and Nintendo games are very "deep" in that.
(Where a save-game can store the state of the world, not just the number of EXP and GOLD that you found.)
Again I wonder what game you've been playing, because Zelda does have a changing world-state as you progress, while it has nothing like EXP (experience points).
Seriously, in the adventure/rpg (well, almost anything except fighting or racing games) PCs blow away consoles
No they don't, they just have some different types of adventures/RPGs. You apparently prefer the PC style, which is fine, but don't knock the console versions. They provide as high a quality of games as PCs. I personally like PC RPGs very much, but they aren't the same type of game as Final Fantasy or Zelda games.
And you're wrong about racing games as well. Fighting games pretty much only exist on consoles, but PCs are far better racing game machines. Both are about par in arcade racers, but PCs excel in sim racers. There's nothing like Grand Prix Legends on consoles.
I pray to Miyamoto above that this will never happen. Zelda games have been goddamn near perfection for many years, I don't wanna see the inevitable downslide until after Miyamoto dies ;-)