I think there is room to expand. It's called 'multiple discs', and though only used by obscure games such as the Final Fantasy series, Metal Gear series, and Resident Evils, I think there just might be a viable option there. Plus, 3 DVDs are cheaper than 1 BluRay disc.
Substitute apples and ALAR, or farming and topsoil, or computers and Y2k, or SARS, or pollution and acid rain, and I've heard a spiritual twin to this rant dozens of times over the last two decades.
I know, I know... if only we'd signed Kyoto, everything would be fixed.
And what exactly is the difference between thinking something is a game and it actually being a game? I'm hard pressed to come up with a definition of game that has any distinction between the two.
An economy that won't get any bigger without investment. By the time they're done with that deal, the taxes on the McMansions alone will provide far more than the $223 mil. Which is why I say people against pork are rather shortsighted.
Taking your ideas to their logical conclusion, we should give all of our money to the federal government, as it will invest it more wisely than any of us mere mortals can. Pretty ingenious idea; I wonder why it's never been tried before...
So, from watching the videos, this seems to be a glorified version of tag. Which was fun and all, when I was 5 (especially Cartoon Tag!) but doesn't hold a lot of appeal to a 30-something guy who isn't exactly in the best shape of his life. I'm curious if this is something that the late teen/early 20s crowd would really be interested in.
Exactly -- It's just like corporate taxes. Corporations don't pay them, they count them as part of the cost of doing business and recoup those expenses by raising prices on their products. But I expect to be modded down, as the Slashdot crowd doesn't like the natural end result of that line of reasoning.:)
I don't see how MMOs will get rated though. Are they going to spend 400 hours powerlevelling in FFXI to get to max level so they can see all the raid instances?
How often do you go look at artwork you may have on the walls of your home with a big, goofy grin on your face? Or stand in front of a painting while crying? I tend to have an esentially neutral expression on my face 90% of the time, and probably 99% of the time while looking at art in a museum. My eyes may widen in appreciation of truly masterful art, but I don't beam at the painting.
Tangential to the discussion of whether events in a FMV sequence count as the game is the point that negative actions can't affect us as powerfully in games as in other media due to the ease of saving and reloading your game. If your teammate dies, or you choose the wrong dialog option and alienate your true love, fixing it is just a short Esc->Load away. The obvious exceptions are the afore-mentioned FMV or non-interactive scenes, where the event is a fixed part of the game's storyline.
The larger problem, in my mind, is that people continually try to draw parallels between gaming and movies, or books, or other forms of entertainment, when they should be judged on their own merits. When you go to Six Flags, you don't consider how good of a story the Screaming Eagle rollercoaster has, or whether the Iron Wolf coaster can make you cry. Those kinds of questions are irrelevant, nonsensical even. Games need to be judged on an entertainment scale, which could do with a bit of evolution with regards to shades of meaning. Is it engrossing? Exciting? Enticing? Fulfilling? The continual comparison to other forms of media on their own terms can only be detrimental to games.
No amount of rationalization will convince 5 million Koreans that Starcraft has a sequel. Your point is akin to saying that "Well, Harrison Ford has been in other action/adventure movies, so it's almost like there has been a 4th Indiana Jones film already".
Your point about MMOs not getting sequels while still running is contradicted by the fact that the three MMO sequels that come to mind -- Lineage II, Everquest II, and Asheron's Call II -- all came out while their parent was still very much alive and active.
Again, see my point about Indiana Jones. Or ask anyone who is a hardcore fan of Alpha Centauri if they consider Civ 4 a sequel.
What does being a sequel itself have to do with whether Diablo 2, an insanely popular game, got a sequel? Not sure what your point is here.
Tron 2.0 wasn't exactly a fresh movie tie-in. That's like saying Knights of the Old Republic is a movie game which makes it hard to get a sequel until Star Wars films 7-9 come out. Speaking of which, that's another one to add to the list -- KOTOR 2.
How many success games have there been without a sequel?
Few come to mind. Starcraft, Ultima Online, Tron 2.0, Alpha Centauri, Chronicles of Riddick, Diablo 2, and Dark Age of Camelot just off the top of my head.
Stop laughing, dammit! Who among the 8-bit generation doesn't remember how awesome it was to grab a starman and hear the invincibility theme for the first time, or didn't get even slightly spooked by the underworld music?)
No laughing here. The overworld theme to Legend of Zelda is a brilliant piece of music that manages to sum up the entire feel of the game. I actually get shivers down my spine when I hear it, and I'm not ashamed to admit that the acapella version of it from that omnipresent video of a couple years ago brought a tear to my eye.
... no matter how shiny it gets, it's still a turd. This game is fundamentally flawed, and superficial reworking of some systems will not fix it. This game is the biggest grindfest yet devised, and changing up the combat system, let alone the occasional double xp weekend, won't change that.
What I don't understand is WHY Microsoft is trying to push PC gaming. It's not like Apple is competing in that arena
That's exactly *why* they are pushing it. The only pure, unarguable advantage the Windows-powered PC has over it's Apple and Linux competitors is gaming. Productivity apps? Generally more user-friendly and versatile on the Mac. Control over your system or security? Linux all the way. And don't get me started on professional tasks like film editing.
If I didn't play games with my PC, odds are that my upgrade money would go to Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you meant drivel, not "dribble".
I think there is room to expand. It's called 'multiple discs', and though only used by obscure games such as the Final Fantasy series, Metal Gear series, and Resident Evils, I think there just might be a viable option there. Plus, 3 DVDs are cheaper than 1 BluRay disc.
Substitute apples and ALAR, or farming and topsoil, or computers and Y2k, or SARS, or pollution and acid rain, and I've heard a spiritual twin to this rant dozens of times over the last two decades.
... if only we'd signed Kyoto, everything would be fixed.
/prepares to be modded down to negative infinity
I know, I know
let them enjoy it by thinking it is a game!
And what exactly is the difference between thinking something is a game and it actually being a game? I'm hard pressed to come up with a definition of game that has any distinction between the two.
An even better analogy would be that it's like fixing newly discovered vulnerabilities on your website but neglecting to check for older exploits.
Why the omnipresent need to analogize the most straightforward things? The world may never know.
BF2142? Seeing an ad for toilet paper on the side of some mech that just blew me away is not my idea of a good idea.
Don't be ridiculous -- toilet paper doesn't even exist in 2142; it's all about the 3 seashells.
An economy that won't get any bigger without investment. By the time they're done with that deal, the taxes on the McMansions alone will provide far more than the $223 mil. Which is why I say people against pork are rather shortsighted. Taking your ideas to their logical conclusion, we should give all of our money to the federal government, as it will invest it more wisely than any of us mere mortals can. Pretty ingenious idea; I wonder why it's never been tried before...
So, from watching the videos, this seems to be a glorified version of tag. Which was fun and all, when I was 5 (especially Cartoon Tag!) but doesn't hold a lot of appeal to a 30-something guy who isn't exactly in the best shape of his life. I'm curious if this is something that the late teen/early 20s crowd would really be interested in.
Exactly -- It's just like corporate taxes. Corporations don't pay them, they count them as part of the cost of doing business and recoup those expenses by raising prices on their products. But I expect to be modded down, as the Slashdot crowd doesn't like the natural end result of that line of reasoning. :)
I don't see how MMOs will get rated though. Are they going to spend 400 hours powerlevelling in FFXI to get to max level so they can see all the raid instances?
How often do you go look at artwork you may have on the walls of your home with a big, goofy grin on your face? Or stand in front of a painting while crying? I tend to have an esentially neutral expression on my face 90% of the time, and probably 99% of the time while looking at art in a museum. My eyes may widen in appreciation of truly masterful art, but I don't beam at the painting.
movies have made us believe that sword fights last minutes while gunfights are over in a matter of seconds.
:)
You've obviously never seen a John Woo film
Tangential to the discussion of whether events in a FMV sequence count as the game is the point that negative actions can't affect us as powerfully in games as in other media due to the ease of saving and reloading your game. If your teammate dies, or you choose the wrong dialog option and alienate your true love, fixing it is just a short Esc->Load away. The obvious exceptions are the afore-mentioned FMV or non-interactive scenes, where the event is a fixed part of the game's storyline. The larger problem, in my mind, is that people continually try to draw parallels between gaming and movies, or books, or other forms of entertainment, when they should be judged on their own merits. When you go to Six Flags, you don't consider how good of a story the Screaming Eagle rollercoaster has, or whether the Iron Wolf coaster can make you cry. Those kinds of questions are irrelevant, nonsensical even. Games need to be judged on an entertainment scale, which could do with a bit of evolution with regards to shades of meaning. Is it engrossing? Exciting? Enticing? Fulfilling? The continual comparison to other forms of media on their own terms can only be detrimental to games.
No amount of rationalization will convince 5 million Koreans that Starcraft has a sequel. Your point is akin to saying that "Well, Harrison Ford has been in other action/adventure movies, so it's almost like there has been a 4th Indiana Jones film already". Your point about MMOs not getting sequels while still running is contradicted by the fact that the three MMO sequels that come to mind -- Lineage II, Everquest II, and Asheron's Call II -- all came out while their parent was still very much alive and active. Again, see my point about Indiana Jones. Or ask anyone who is a hardcore fan of Alpha Centauri if they consider Civ 4 a sequel. What does being a sequel itself have to do with whether Diablo 2, an insanely popular game, got a sequel? Not sure what your point is here. Tron 2.0 wasn't exactly a fresh movie tie-in. That's like saying Knights of the Old Republic is a movie game which makes it hard to get a sequel until Star Wars films 7-9 come out. Speaking of which, that's another one to add to the list -- KOTOR 2.
How many success games have there been without a sequel?
Few come to mind. Starcraft, Ultima Online, Tron 2.0, Alpha Centauri, Chronicles of Riddick, Diablo 2, and Dark Age of Camelot just off the top of my head.
Plus, Big Oil killed Kennedy -- HL Hunt was the gunman on the grassy knoll. True story.
Stop laughing, dammit! Who among the 8-bit generation doesn't remember how awesome it was to grab a starman and hear the invincibility theme for the first time, or didn't get even slightly spooked by the underworld music?)
No laughing here. The overworld theme to Legend of Zelda is a brilliant piece of music that manages to sum up the entire feel of the game. I actually get shivers down my spine when I hear it, and I'm not ashamed to admit that the acapella version of it from that omnipresent video of a couple years ago brought a tear to my eye.
I for one am happy that this console cum PC is coming out, as I'm due for an upgrade from my current PC
even in areas that are highly "liberal,"
I think you mean "especially in areas that are highly "liberal,".
Personally, I always preferred the Tiny Toons parody http://web.archive.org/web/20011108133559/http://m embers.home.net/transactoid/thud.wmv
I think thats kinda what the Beyonder was going for at the end of Secret Wars II.
Oh capitalism, what won't you do?
... so how can they afford a monthly subscription fee?
... no matter how shiny it gets, it's still a turd. This game is fundamentally flawed, and superficial reworking of some systems will not fix it. This game is the biggest grindfest yet devised, and changing up the combat system, let alone the occasional double xp weekend, won't change that.
What I don't understand is WHY Microsoft is trying to push PC gaming. It's not like Apple is competing in that arena
That's exactly *why* they are pushing it. The only pure, unarguable advantage the Windows-powered PC has over it's Apple and Linux competitors is gaming. Productivity apps? Generally more user-friendly and versatile on the Mac. Control over your system or security? Linux all the way. And don't get me started on professional tasks like film editing. If I didn't play games with my PC, odds are that my upgrade money would go to Apple.