Well, the cartridge doesn't allow for split-screen games, but I guess someone could write software to create four separate GBA sessions on a single GC and orchestrate a multiplayer split-screen game of the adapter cartridge that way, but I'd be very surprised if Nintendo did this. Then again, they do push the system link capabilities of the GBA, so it's something they might look at for the adapter. A lot of titles offer multiplayer games with only one cartridge, which would help. Some require multiple carts for extra features, but I guess a lot of that is to do with bandwidth between GBAs - something that needn't be an issue if all sessions are running on the GC.
One great aspect of this is it will allow big-screen, front-room access to wonderful games like Advance Wars and its imminent sequel - games which have far more depth than the majority of PS2/GC/Xbox titles, but don't stand a chance of being released on any of the 'proper' consoles because they're 2D, "old school", blah blah blah. Hell, until its big brother shows up, Mario Kart Advance is flat-out the best 'fun' racer you can play on the current platforms. Yeah, that's like having a SNES in your front room (no bad thing), but a great game is a great game, just like a poor one is a poor one, regardless of poly count and shaders. Truth be told, this will probably lead to my GBA games taking up far more screen time than their GC shelfmates. Bonus.
Project Gotham is the game to go for if you find Gran Turismo a little dull. GT is wonderful if you're into 'realistic' racing, tweaking, and the pure challenge of maintaining a racing line and trimming split seconds off lap times. PGR is more immediate fun, concentrating on score-based gameplay via powerslides and stunts. Both have a place, and if you're a driving game fan you could happily bounce from one to the other in the name of 'variety'. I'll have to get PGR2 to see how they've recreated Florence... but I'd step over both to get at Halo 2 - which will also feature fine drivin'!
A great online feature for GT4 would be a centrally-stored database of the world's best track/lap records, with ghost car data available to download to the hd or memory card. Instead of simply trying to top the #1 driver, you can then race directly against their best performance, and upload your ghost when you beat them. A good way to pick up on track strategies, too...
Parent is straight-up 100% correct on this. The POkemon Puzzle League version plays just as well (with a few extra modes), and is available on the GB / N64, but any iteration of this game on any console is mighty good news. If you love puzzle games and haven't tried it yet, look for Pokemon Puzzle League on the GB - the only 'current' version on the market. Of course, if you have the original up in the attic, a Super Famicom ROM is also an option...
Yeah,m the keyboard is essential in replicatin all the joypad functions (potentially 20 buttons on the Xbox pad, if you include the d-pad). But the disadvantage is that you lose the Xbox' second analogue stick and analogue buttons - two sticks offer analogue accelleration AND steering, while the buttons allow you to control, say, rate of fire on a machine gun. Halo isn't a flagship for these functions (you probably want to be accellerating and shooting flat out most of the time), but they are there and they don't translate to the standard PC mouse / kb setup. I'm sure the functions can be mapped onto a joypad or stick or whatever, but then you lose the standard interface that graces console titles...
This isn't to say that console titles are naturally superior to PC ones, of course - it's just that games which draw heavily on the strength of one platform may not transfer gracefully to another. Miyamoto had a good shot at cracking the problem of console RTS games with Pikmin, but the RTS still lends itself more easily to a keyboard than a joypad, for example...
It'll be interesting to see how the gameplay changes with the implementation of mouselook controls - Halo's Xbox control scheme seems to fit the game's style and pace perfectly, whereas many console FPS titles suffer from the move to the smoother, less 'twitchy' control pads. Integrating the vehicles will be another interesting control challenge; a pad switches easily from walking to driving to flying, a mouse perhaps less so. Still, here's hoping a lot more people get to appreciate this great title...
It amazes me that Slashbots can criticize players like Microsoft for ignoring standards when it suits them, then turn around and do exactly the same thing themselves.
But at the same time, don't assume that every poster has an identical anti-MS, pro-liberal-use-of-the-term-Unix stance. Nothing in the parent post mentions Microsoft and standards, so while your point about standards is well made, throwing in the term 'Slashbots' hardly works toward establishing the rational and reasoned Slashdot I'm sure you (and most of us) would prefer. Though rereading the latter half of that sentence does make me wonder if I might be delerious this morning.
Keep a look out for old "Black Hole" action figures - including surely the only commercially produced Ernest Borgnine figure in human history. In grey, IIRC, and as unmistakable as you'd imagine. Probably about the right size, judging by some of the 'copter shots.
Everything's really starting to come together for you, isn't it?
An age-old problem, indeed. Our terminal-based library software insists on describing a full-time student as a "full-time stud". I guess the browser tab advantage is that you can resize the window until you get the comical results you're after...
Anyway, back on topic, this is very nice. I notice a custom stylesheet option in the advanced tab, but I can't remember if it was there before. You can set the default browser from the general preferences pane (set it to ANY browser, not just Safari, which makes a nice change). And there's a button for auto-fill available in the toolbar, but disabled by default... and "up a directory" / "personal note" bookmarklets, though it's possible that a) they were in previous releases, or b) I put them there myself ages ago and forgot about it.
Also, the fantastic 'Labyrinth' level in Super Monkey Ball 2 is proof that a simple maze game (or level in this case) still has the power to draw you in. Combined with SMB2's control scheme and physics engine, it's something else. I'd pay full-price for a collection of maze-based SMB levels if they were all as well realised...
And then on the other hand, when the public rise up and protest about not being Sony's cattle, Open*.* initiatives can be branded evil and any number of safe, comforting and closed systems can be introduced. Hurrah!
> Normally I just zap away during a commercial > break. If they get what they want then I can > imagine a future with digital tv, when you zap > way the commercial break too long, you will be > banned from watching the end of the show.
And should you choose to read a magazine or look out the window during the ad break, they can put up a list of observational questions about the adverts that have to be answered before the show resumes. Hey, that's not bad... to the patent office!
No mention of "Windows ME", but there is a mention of "Windows Millennium Edition", which also handles Win2KPro, or, if you will, Windows 2000 Professional:
-----
Q Why doesn't the Product Lifecycle Roadmap mention Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Millennium Edition?
A Operating systems not listed under the Windows Desktop Product Lifecycle Roadmap section are currently in the Mainstream phase. No changes in phase are planned prior to December 31, 2002. Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Millennium Edition* were generally available on February 17, 2000 and September 14, 2000 respectively.
I have great fun with Debian - 56k dial-up at home, so for larger updates (X, Gnome, KDE...) I grab packages at work, burn then, and take them home with me. Work==NT, so I have to spend time physically parsing the Debian unstable tree, following new dependencies as they pop up and then backtracking to where I was originally. I'm invariable missing something by the time I get home. This makes the times I can use apt even sweeter... Some web-based recursive dependency checker would be ideal - "Want X4.1.0? Then you'll need foo and bar. And bar requires cheech, and cheech requires version 2.6 of chong." On second thoughts, that takes all the fun out of it...
For more Flatland antics...
on
Flatterland
·
· Score: 3
Check out Rudy Rucker's great book, "The Fourth Dimension and How to Get There". It discusses Flatland and related dimensional realms at length, covering questions such as "how does a 2d creature's digestive system work?" along the way. A Very Good Book. Rucker also revisited Flatland in his short story, Message Found in a Copy of Flatland - that can be found in his recent short fiction anthology, "Gnarl!"
The PS2 controller is an enhanced version of the PS1 Dual Shock controller - the main difference is that all the buttons are analogue. This feature hasn't really been used much yet - Zone of the Enders uses it, but the best example so far is the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo. When things get going, it could make a world of difference to beat-em-ups, to use one obvious example - 8 buttons with, say, four levels of sensitivity (the buttons ovver 256) gives you 32 attacks from just the standard controls, without taking combinations into account. Tap lightly for a quick jab, thump the button for a hard punch... but that's a pretty dull example. Accelerator / brake pedals, aiming angles, musical scales (like a slide trombone)... leave it with the Japanese for a few months, and see what happens.
Tony Hawks' 2 is now available on PC, at least in the UK, with levels from the first game included, in case anyone's tempted to buy a PSX or Dreamcast just for this game. I haven't tried the PC version, but I'm pretty sure it can't go wrong. My Dreamcast copy rarely left the machine until Phantasy Star Online showed up...
Well, our bus station over here in Northampton, Blighty has a big array of screen showing departure times and such, and up to a year ago whenever they crashed they'd be showing Amiga Guru Meditation screens. There was always at least one down, so it was a nice nostalgia trip to head down to the depot and see the flashing red errors, and wistfully imagine it was a room full of A500s powering the whole operation. Then one day - POW! - the BSOD was in place. Occasionally they flip out into the desktop, too.
For a cheap unit with a wide range of features and impressive reviews, you might want to check out the Scan SC2000. I haven't tried it, but it comes recommended, especially for UK buyers.
I'm tempted, but it'll be hard to justify to my better half, especially after touting DVD playback as a good reason for buying my PS2...
Grab a copy of TweakUI for 2k - the official beta of it has expired, but there's a non-expiring version here, and elsewhere. This will let you change the location of system folders, so you can move "C:\Documents and Settings\Foo\My Documents" to "c:\foo\doc", if you want to.
You can also set filename completion from TweakUI, so you can use tab to autocomplete, a la Bash.
Renaming "Downloaded Program Files" to "DPrg" might work for you, but it's not going to do much good for, say, my father, who would just see "DPrg" as a random collection of letters, and further evidence that the computing world is determined to keep him from joining in...
BNL do seem to be doing this in style - quipping in the trojan clips, etc. This is fair play, they're not getting lawyers involved, they're reacting sanely - by trying to have fun along the way. The likelihood is that the bogus files won't propogate on the Napster 'network', and at any rate genuine files will soon appear, and be clearly marked as such. Of course, BNL can then release clearly-marked "genuine" files that are still bogus, and it could all become an escalating battle of wits, in which case God help the Napster users...
At any rate, BNL are a fine band. Buy their album!
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the cartridge doesn't allow for split-screen games, but I guess someone could write software to create four separate GBA sessions on a single GC and orchestrate a multiplayer split-screen game of the adapter cartridge that way, but I'd be very surprised if Nintendo did this. Then again, they do push the system link capabilities of the GBA, so it's something they might look at for the adapter.
A lot of titles offer multiplayer games with only one cartridge, which would help. Some require multiple carts for extra features, but I guess a lot of that is to do with bandwidth between GBAs - something that needn't be an issue if all sessions are running on the GC.
Looking out for stair-based methods for foiling homicidal machines is more an indicator of too much Dr. Who, actually...
Remember this quote from the article:
... when they turn against us.
Magnetic strips must be placed at doorways and near stairs to act as invisible walls and stop it plunging to its doom down a flight of steps.
One great aspect of this is it will allow big-screen, front-room access to wonderful games like Advance Wars and its imminent sequel - games which have far more depth than the majority of PS2/GC/Xbox titles, but don't stand a chance of being released on any of the 'proper' consoles because they're 2D, "old school", blah blah blah. Hell, until its big brother shows up, Mario Kart Advance is flat-out the best 'fun' racer you can play on the current platforms. Yeah, that's like having a SNES in your front room (no bad thing), but a great game is a great game, just like a poor one is a poor one, regardless of poly count and shaders. Truth be told, this will probably lead to my GBA games taking up far more screen time than their GC shelfmates. Bonus.
Project Gotham is the game to go for if you find Gran Turismo a little dull. GT is wonderful if you're into 'realistic' racing, tweaking, and the pure challenge of maintaining a racing line and trimming split seconds off lap times. PGR is more immediate fun, concentrating on score-based gameplay via powerslides and stunts. Both have a place, and if you're a driving game fan you could happily bounce from one to the other in the name of 'variety'. I'll have to get PGR2 to see how they've recreated Florence... but I'd step over both to get at Halo 2 - which will also feature fine drivin'!
A great online feature for GT4 would be a centrally-stored database of the world's best track/lap records, with ghost car data available to download to the hd or memory card. Instead of simply trying to top the #1 driver, you can then race directly against their best performance, and upload your ghost when you beat them. A good way to pick up on track strategies, too...
Parent is straight-up 100% correct on this. The POkemon Puzzle League version plays just as well (with a few extra modes), and is available on the GB / N64, but any iteration of this game on any console is mighty good news. If you love puzzle games and haven't tried it yet, look for Pokemon Puzzle League on the GB - the only 'current' version on the market. Of course, if you have the original up in the attic, a Super Famicom ROM is also an option...
Definitely a classic.
Yeah,m the keyboard is essential in replicatin all the joypad functions (potentially 20 buttons on the Xbox pad, if you include the d-pad). But the disadvantage is that you lose the Xbox' second analogue stick and analogue buttons - two sticks offer analogue accelleration AND steering, while the buttons allow you to control, say, rate of fire on a machine gun. Halo isn't a flagship for these functions (you probably want to be accellerating and shooting flat out most of the time), but they are there and they don't translate to the standard PC mouse / kb setup. I'm sure the functions can be mapped onto a joypad or stick or whatever, but then you lose the standard interface that graces console titles...
This isn't to say that console titles are naturally superior to PC ones, of course - it's just that games which draw heavily on the strength of one platform may not transfer gracefully to another. Miyamoto had a good shot at cracking the problem of console RTS games with Pikmin, but the RTS still lends itself more easily to a keyboard than a joypad, for example...
It'll be interesting to see how the gameplay changes with the implementation of mouselook controls - Halo's Xbox control scheme seems to fit the game's style and pace perfectly, whereas many console FPS titles suffer from the move to the smoother, less 'twitchy' control pads. Integrating the vehicles will be another interesting control challenge; a pad switches easily from walking to driving to flying, a mouse perhaps less so. Still, here's hoping a lot more people get to appreciate this great title...
It amazes me that Slashbots can criticize players like Microsoft for ignoring standards when it suits them, then turn around and do exactly the same thing themselves.
But at the same time, don't assume that every poster has an identical anti-MS, pro-liberal-use-of-the-term-Unix stance. Nothing in the parent post mentions Microsoft and standards, so while your point about standards is well made, throwing in the term 'Slashbots' hardly works toward establishing the rational and reasoned Slashdot I'm sure you (and most of us) would prefer. Though rereading the latter half of that sentence does make me wonder if I might be delerious this morning.
Keep a look out for old "Black Hole" action figures - including surely the only commercially produced Ernest Borgnine figure in human history. In grey, IIRC, and as unmistakable as you'd imagine. Probably about the right size, judging by some of the 'copter shots.
Everything's really starting to come together for you, isn't it?
An age-old problem, indeed. Our terminal-based library software insists on describing a full-time student as a "full-time stud". I guess the browser tab advantage is that you can resize the window until you get the comical results you're after...
Anyway, back on topic, this is very nice. I notice a custom stylesheet option in the advanced tab, but I can't remember if it was there before. You can set the default browser from the general preferences pane (set it to ANY browser, not just Safari, which makes a nice change). And there's a button for auto-fill available in the toolbar, but disabled by default... and "up a directory" / "personal note" bookmarklets, though it's possible that a) they were in previous releases, or b) I put them there myself ages ago and forgot about it.
Me: very poor. But Safari: excellent.
Also, the fantastic 'Labyrinth' level in Super Monkey Ball 2 is proof that a simple maze game (or level in this case) still has the power to draw you in. Combined with SMB2's control scheme and physics engine, it's something else. I'd pay full-price for a collection of maze-based SMB levels if they were all as well realised...
And then on the other hand, when the public rise up and protest about not being Sony's cattle, Open*.* initiatives can be branded evil and any number of safe, comforting and closed systems can be introduced. Hurrah!
> Normally I just zap away during a commercial
> break. If they get what they want then I can
> imagine a future with digital tv, when you zap
> way the commercial break too long, you will be
> banned from watching the end of the show.
And should you choose to read a magazine or look out the window during the ad break, they can put up a list of observational questions about the adverts that have to be answered before the show resumes. Hey, that's not bad... to the patent office!
No mention of "Windows ME", but there is a mention of "Windows Millennium Edition", which also handles Win2KPro, or, if you will, Windows 2000 Professional:
-----
Q Why doesn't the Product Lifecycle Roadmap mention Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Millennium Edition?
A Operating systems not listed under the Windows Desktop Product Lifecycle Roadmap section are currently in the Mainstream phase. No changes in phase are planned prior to December 31, 2002. Windows 2000 Professional and Windows Millennium Edition* were generally available on February 17, 2000 and September 14, 2000 respectively.
>Macrovision has had copy protection that inserts
> noise and monkeys with your picture
This sounds like the best protection system ever. It turns everything into the last fifteen minutes of 'Congo'.
I have great fun with Debian - 56k dial-up at home, so for larger updates (X, Gnome, KDE...) I grab packages at work, burn then, and take them home with me. Work==NT, so I have to spend time physically parsing the Debian unstable tree, following new dependencies as they pop up and then backtracking to where I was originally. I'm invariable missing something by the time I get home. This makes the times I can use apt even sweeter... Some web-based recursive dependency checker would be ideal - "Want X4.1.0? Then you'll need foo and bar. And bar requires cheech, and cheech requires version 2.6 of chong." On second thoughts, that takes all the fun out of it...
Check out Rudy Rucker's great book, "The Fourth Dimension and How to Get There". It discusses Flatland and related dimensional realms at length, covering questions such as "how does a 2d creature's digestive system work?" along the way. A Very Good Book. Rucker also revisited Flatland in his short story, Message Found in a Copy of Flatland - that can be found in his recent short fiction anthology, "Gnarl!"
Well, long post short, just buy all his books.
The PS2 controller is an enhanced version of the PS1 Dual Shock controller - the main difference is that all the buttons are analogue. This feature hasn't really been used much yet - Zone of the Enders uses it, but the best example so far is the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo. When things get going, it could make a world of difference to beat-em-ups, to use one obvious example - 8 buttons with, say, four levels of sensitivity (the buttons ovver 256) gives you 32 attacks from just the standard controls, without taking combinations into account. Tap lightly for a quick jab, thump the button for a hard punch... but that's a pretty dull example. Accelerator / brake pedals, aiming angles, musical scales (like a slide trombone)... leave it with the Japanese for a few months, and see what happens.
Tony Hawks' 2 is now available on PC, at least in the UK, with levels from the first game included, in case anyone's tempted to buy a PSX or Dreamcast just for this game. I haven't tried the PC version, but I'm pretty sure it can't go wrong. My Dreamcast copy rarely left the machine until Phantasy Star Online showed up...
Well, our bus station over here in Northampton, Blighty has a big array of screen showing departure times and such, and up to a year ago whenever they crashed they'd be showing Amiga Guru Meditation screens. There was always at least one down, so it was a nice nostalgia trip to head down to the depot and see the flashing red errors, and wistfully imagine it was a room full of A500s powering the whole operation. Then one day - POW! - the BSOD was in place. Occasionally they flip out into the desktop, too.
It's no where near as much fun to look at now.
For a cheap unit with a wide range of features and impressive reviews, you might want to check out the Scan SC2000. I haven't tried it, but it comes recommended, especially for UK buyers.
I'm tempted, but it'll be hard to justify to my better half, especially after touting DVD playback as a good reason for buying my PS2...
Grab a copy of TweakUI for 2k - the official beta of it has expired, but there's a non-expiring version here, and elsewhere. This will let you change the location of system folders, so you can move "C:\Documents and Settings\Foo\My Documents" to "c:\foo\doc", if you want to.
You can also set filename completion from TweakUI, so you can use tab to autocomplete, a la Bash.
Renaming "Downloaded Program Files" to "DPrg" might work for you, but it's not going to do much good for, say, my father, who would just see "DPrg" as a random collection of letters, and further evidence that the computing world is determined to keep him from joining in...
BNL do seem to be doing this in style - quipping in the trojan clips, etc. This is fair play, they're not getting lawyers involved, they're reacting sanely - by trying to have fun along the way. The likelihood is that the bogus files won't propogate on the Napster 'network', and at any rate genuine files will soon appear, and be clearly marked as such. Of course, BNL can then release clearly-marked "genuine" files that are still bogus, and it could all become an escalating battle of wits, in which case God help the Napster users...
At any rate, BNL are a fine band. Buy their album!