Have you ever heard the old Sonic Boom CD?;) I think I still have an original copy lying around somewhere, but that CD was more techno-ish than anything and did have a vocal track or two (namely the song "Sonic Boom").
I can see where you'd be annoyed by the pop songs. I can still remember the old Sonic boss themes in my head to this day and I haven't played Sonic in ages. That's a testament to how well a game engrossed you into it.
To my knowledge, Vista includes DirectX 10. However, you're probably thinking of the fact that Vista's Aero interface was coded in DirectX 9EX. DirectX 9EX is essentially DirectX 9 ported to work with Vista's new graphic driver model.
I'm a bit curious on your WoW is OpenGL remark. I thought WoW was coded in both Direct3D and OpenGL with Direct3D as default. As I recall there being a switch that you can put in the shortcut command to load WoW with OpenGL instead. I remember doing this when I was having a weird opaque screen issue with WoW in Direct3D with 4xAA (any other AA setting removed the opaque screen fill problem).
I noticed that this review didn't discuss the multiplayer in Lost Planet at all. Is it fun to play with others? Does it have a good lobby system? I've had some friends that've been asking me to play LP with them, but I've got so many other games to play that I haven't even removed the disc from the case yet.
That definitely could be done, but to be honest, I'd have trouble coming up with the functionalities and I'll try to explain why. Some of the things I like about Vista aren't drastic changes per say, but things that I've liked and they were implemented.
For example, you may be used to how Linux uses a breadcrumb directory display when browsing. Where you can click on a folder name in the directory display and it will browse to that folder. Windows Explorer now has this as well, and although you could consider it taken from Linux, I'm glad to see it as it was one of my favorite features of Linux.
It's like Microsoft made a version 2 of Windows XP and improved upon a lot of the oversights. Because you cannot forget, Windows XP is more-or-less a user-friendly version of Windows 2000 (which wasn't that user friendly).
I'll look into making a Vista vs XP table at least, but I'm not as abreast with Ubuntu enough to give it a fair "grading" in this table. Also, would you prefer a certain version of Vista? I'm currently using Ultimate, but there are definitely variations in features between the different versions.
Well, I actually did it a bit differently than I said, but it's essentially the same. My recent Microsoft purchase was a copy of Media Center Edition that I was going to replace Windows XP with on my old PC. By replacing Windows XP, I moved that unused copy onto my current machine. So you're right, I am eligible for an upgrade to Windows Vista Home Professional, but Home Pro doesn't allow you to send Remote Desktop requests, which is why I went with Ultimate.
I may use that coupon for Home Pro on the MCE machine, but I believe Home Pro is also restricted to 10 network connections (kind of like XP Home was) and that really doesn't sound like something I'd want for a Media/File Server.
I just use the ALC888 HD from Realtek that came on my Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard. It may not be an X-FI, but I have no complaints. Although, I do think the drivers for XP were a little nicer to use than the newer driver for Vista. Since I switch between digital and analog signals a lot, all I did was hit the "Dolby digital" image and it turned off digital processing (i.e. my speakers) and switched to analog (i.e. my headset). For this new driver... my god, I'm still trying to figure out an easy way to switch between the two:P.
I already use Vista and I still game. I have absolutely no issues, albeit everything's still a little bit slower at the moment (nVidia never had mature G80 drivers for XP, why would I expect mature Vista drivers;)). For me, Vista isn't just about my gaming experience, I want my entire PC experience to improve and I think Vista does that well. I could easily throw my old hard drive back in (with the XP partition still available) and go back, but I don't want to. Vista may have its oddities (UAC stopping programs from saving their settings, etc), but overall I'm satisfied.
Do I think people should upgrade? Maybe, if they really want to. If someone's building a new gaming rig, I'd say to just upgrade now and get it over with. Unfortunately, I planned my new rig a couple months ago when Vista was coming out. Then it was delayed and I ended up having to purchase a copy of Windows XP to put on it. So I now wasted $120 on Windows XP that I don't even use anymore. Why would anyone want to do that (keep your piracy comments to yourself)?
That's because only the Burning Crusade install contains elements found in Outlands, Azuremyst Isle and Quel'Thalas. These were not included in the Burning Crusade content patch as you could not access any of them without BC anyway.
Although the exact opposite works, you can play a non-BC account on a BC installation, because all the components required exist.
Well, to be honest, Blizzard shot themselves in the foot with Warcraft "expanding" when it comes to WoW. The problem is that Blizzard usually sticks very close to their lore and they try to keep everything consistent (although the nerds do find flaws every once in awhile;)). Now you may wonder, "well man... what's the dilly?"
If Blizzard makes a Warcraft IV, they will be further pushing the lore beyond its current place in WoW. This can quite possibly cut off WoW's ability to truly have expansions as they cannot further the content but rather further the timeline. A game that exists within two different portions of time and is a dynamic MMO world? I just don't see this happening at all unless it involves some cheesy hack.
So in short, WoW probably doomed the idea of another WarCraft RTS game as Blizzard would end up cutting off expansions to WoW, which are quite possibly more lucrative than another WC game ever will be.
My friends have PSP and I have DS. Most PSP games are very spectacular - but do not have that much of "portable" aspect. Most DS games are easy and often fit to fill a 5/10/15 minute gap one might happened to have - regardless of where you are. Pausing game on DS is as easy as closing lid - PSP's "hold" takes more effort. After closing lid, you can put DS in pocket and forget it - that's also plus. By contrast, PSP needs to be put in protective case since its screen is open. I can agree that some PSP games are not designed well enough to be portable. Lumines is a great example of this. It's a very good PSP game (the first one, not the second one... stupid hyped up MTV TRL trash), but a single run through on challenge mode (where you unlock a good majority of the skins) can take 40-60 minutes for a decent player! Great for long trips... bad for short trips.
Also, the hold feature works just fine, but I'm a bit spoiled, because I have a case that my PSP goes into and I can play it in that case (some Mad Catz travel case thing). It makes the system a bit more bulky, but my screen is in perfect condition.
One thing about the DS, there are touch games that do not cater well toward using a stylus and I do not like touching my screen. This makes me wish Nintendo would've included some screen protectors with the console... at least for the touch screen:). One example of a game like this is Jump Superstars, which was listed in one of the linked articles.
PSP/its games are cooler. That's for sure. You can play them instead of PC/console-based ones. But I will not give up on my standard Tetris/Meteos/BrainAge/MarioCarts inroad game pack anytime soon. And I do not know any games (and my friends do not have such games) one can easily play underway. Tetris isn't available on PSP for sure - and that's sucks. (In fact for me Tetris was decisive factor in favor of DS.) One thing you get with a PSP is a nice homebrew scene. You can play PS1 games on a PSP or almost any other pre-N64 console with ease. It's actually quite a versatile little system once you get around Sony's manhandling of it;).
P.S. Also, battery life of PSP suck. My DS is easily pulling 10+ hours. PSP - is 4-6 hours. That again hurts portability. I think Sony made mistake by going with disk media instead of cartridge. It's really a difficult thing to look back and say it was bad. It really depends on how well they used the disc storage space on the UMD vs how expensive it would've been to manufacture SS devices to hold that same amount of data.
P.P.S. And DS' touch-screen rules. Brain Age' hand writing stuff rules. Typing WEP128 key into PSP takes lots of patience - on DS' touch screen that just... easy. I have to admit, Brain Age's writing is the one thing I loved about it. I won't play any other Sudoku game on the DS that doesn't have a proper writing system implemented. Oddly enough, out of all the available games, Brain Age is the only one that has a proper implementation. I remember trying to play one of them (I think Sudoku Mania!) and the game would not recognize a '5' at all. I tried writing '5', 'S', etc and nothing worked.
Also, you'd only need to use WPA if you didn't have a DS:P. Nintendo dropped the ball on wireless encryption support in that case and made people have to stick with the very insecure WEP protocol. Albeit, it'd still be easier typing in a WPA key on a DS, but let me tell you... it's much easier typing in a passcode on a PSP than 32 hex characters:P.
Also, I wonder why they included Jump Superstars in that originality article but left out the Japanese PSP Brain Trainer game? It's by the same people that made Brain Age and (just like Jump Superstars) is only available in Japan. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'd like to:).
RLP, the Bleach Wii game is already out and available at importers. Here's the closest importer to me (literally 1 day delivery no matter what option I choose) and they have it:
This brings me to a complaint about the Wii... Nintendo did it right with the NDS when they made no region locking. So why did they do it on the Wii? Sony has no region locking on the PS3. Microsoft doesn't enforce region locking on the XBOX 360 (Microsoft does region lock the games that they publish, so games like Kameo, Gears of War and Blue Dragon are locked)... why couldn't Nintendo do this?
I mean, I have a swap disc (FreeLoader) for the GameCube that I use for Naruto Gekito Ninja Taisen 4, but with this new generation and Nintendo's prior lack of region locking, I expected to not have to play the swap game anymore.
Oh and to avoid making more replies, the NDS vs PSP debate above. Personally, I think the PSP offers more than the NDS does overall. I own both the PSP and NDS Lite Onyx (originally had a Polar White but I sold it to buy the Onyx... I like black consoles:P), and my Onyx never gets played. I use my PSP every day whether it's being used as a gaming console, a music player (which it does a fairly decent job at) or a video player (it does a great job with this). There are a decent amount of titles for it as well as the NDS, but I do have twice as many games for the PSP as the NDS.
The ratings system to compare your hardware to game requirements is great, but not for me, i can read the requirements and know what my system can and can't do, but good for teh newb. Even for the "newb" it won't work. I finally installed Rainbow Six Vegas on my PC last night and it ran one of those nice hardware requirement checks on the following components in my PC:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (Mhz)
2GB RAM (they don't care about speed)
nVidia GeForce 8800GTX (video memory and abilities)
And I actually came out with an incompatability! They said my processor wouldn't be able to handle Rainbow Six Vegas, because it wasn't 3Ghz or higher:P. I just laughed and clicked "Ok." These hardware tests are far from perfect.
There will also be a totally separate Blue Dragon manga serialized in Monthly Jump as well. I forget who the mangaka for this one is, though, as it's not the same person who's doing the Weekly Jump manga.
I have the first chapter of the Weekly Jump manga translated, but I haven't actually sat down and read it yet.
Supposedly Microsoft said that developing Applications for the XBOX 360 using the XBOX's XNA doesn't work as well as it does on the PC. They didn't really say why, but we have to remember that the XBOX 360 runs a modified version of the.NET 2.0 architecture, not the standard version that Windows machines can use.
They also remarked that they are working toward trying to make application development a good possibility.
I believe this information is in the XNA FAQ.
You're right, and that's because the Slim PS2's chip is not the same as the original PS2's EE. When Sony created the Slim-PS2, they integrated the Sound & I/O controller from the original PS2 (i.e. the PSX's original hardware) onto the original PS2's EE, therefore consolidating the main processing into one unit. When sony included the Slim PS2's chip on the PS3, it essentially enabled all functionality (excluding controller use and memory card use (without an adapter)) of the Slim PS2.
Believe it or not, but the reason some Wal-Mart employees do not take the Wal-Mart provided health insurance is because of how poor it really is. For the run-of-the-mill insurance, you've got a good $300 a year that you must pay first and then insurance will begin covering some expenses. Note that some of this is purely off of my memory and some numbers may be off. The thing is... how often do you really visit a doctor that you may end up spending more than $300 a year? Note that this is not just $300 altogether.. this is $300 per medically-covered person.
Trust me, my friend... the light at the end of the tunnel is quite bleak for most Wal-Mart employees. I've had family members work there for whatever reason (and that's how I know about the health insurance), and all I heard about is how poor the environment is, etc. When you're big, the little worker ants that you manage in your large ant farm are nothing to you. One "dies," you simply replace it with another ant that you scoop out of the metaphorical dirt (not to say Wal-Mart employees are dirt/scum or anything like that).
Also, I've been reading other posts in this thread and I'd like to mention a bit about Wal-Mart tactics. When it comes to pricing, Wal-Mart will tell a manufacturer if its price is too high. If it is and the manufacturer won't meet Wal-Mart's expectations... don't expect to see that manufacturer's product in your local Wal-Mart. There aren't many other companies that could use their leverage like that to influence products in their design, manufacturing or pricing. Now, this does theoretically come down to a proposed lower cost to the consumer (at Wal-Mart only, mind you... just 'cause Wal-Mart gets Oreos for $1.50 a bag, doesn't mean Costco does), but what price are we paying for this?
The company simply holds such a powerful grip as they probably serve the majority of the shopping public in the United States. With that said, you can lay the rules as a business needs to sell its product and to lose such a foothold could spell disaster for profits. So, what do you do... lose a little bit of profits having to sell your product to Wal-Mart for less... or never gain any profits for selling your product in Wal-Mart, because they won't stock it. For any executive, the choice is obvious, as much as it seems like corporate bullying to the average consumer.
Actually, region locks were created to avoid a movie being released in one country hurting the sales of the movie being released in another country at a later date. That's why the regions numbers are set the way they are. The United States is Region 1, because they assume that most movies come out in the United States first. So to avoid say... Japanese people from buying the American DVD and hurting sales when the movie is finally released in Japan, they have region locks so they "must" wait for the Region 2 DVD.
Although, about the PS3 being region-free... I have to say I'm quite happy to see this. There've been a few games I would've enjoyed importing (enjoyed enough to ignore the fact that I have no idea what the screen says;)). I can't remember much about the backward compatability of the PS3 as I've been a bit out of the loop, but if it can play PS2 games, this should let it play... say a Japanese PS2 game. That'd be quite a sales perk to avoid another system being ruined to a mod-chip just to play an imported game.
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Have you ever heard the old Sonic Boom CD? ;) I think I still have an original copy lying around somewhere, but that CD was more techno-ish than anything and did have a vocal track or two (namely the song "Sonic Boom").
I can see where you'd be annoyed by the pop songs. I can still remember the old Sonic boss themes in my head to this day and I haven't played Sonic in ages. That's a testament to how well a game engrossed you into it.
To my knowledge, Vista includes DirectX 10. However, you're probably thinking of the fact that Vista's Aero interface was coded in DirectX 9EX. DirectX 9EX is essentially DirectX 9 ported to work with Vista's new graphic driver model.
I'm a bit curious on your WoW is OpenGL remark. I thought WoW was coded in both Direct3D and OpenGL with Direct3D as default. As I recall there being a switch that you can put in the shortcut command to load WoW with OpenGL instead. I remember doing this when I was having a weird opaque screen issue with WoW in Direct3D with 4xAA (any other AA setting removed the opaque screen fill problem).
I noticed that this review didn't discuss the multiplayer in Lost Planet at all. Is it fun to play with others? Does it have a good lobby system? I've had some friends that've been asking me to play LP with them, but I've got so many other games to play that I haven't even removed the disc from the case yet.
Ugh, not another 3D game going to the DS. I mean, we thought Superman Returns couldn't get much worse, but the DS showed us that it could! ;)
Well, let's hope EA can prove the trend wrong.
That definitely could be done, but to be honest, I'd have trouble coming up with the functionalities and I'll try to explain why. Some of the things I like about Vista aren't drastic changes per say, but things that I've liked and they were implemented.
For example, you may be used to how Linux uses a breadcrumb directory display when browsing. Where you can click on a folder name in the directory display and it will browse to that folder. Windows Explorer now has this as well, and although you could consider it taken from Linux, I'm glad to see it as it was one of my favorite features of Linux.
It's like Microsoft made a version 2 of Windows XP and improved upon a lot of the oversights. Because you cannot forget, Windows XP is more-or-less a user-friendly version of Windows 2000 (which wasn't that user friendly).
I'll look into making a Vista vs XP table at least, but I'm not as abreast with Ubuntu enough to give it a fair "grading" in this table. Also, would you prefer a certain version of Vista? I'm currently using Ultimate, but there are definitely variations in features between the different versions.
Well, I actually did it a bit differently than I said, but it's essentially the same. My recent Microsoft purchase was a copy of Media Center Edition that I was going to replace Windows XP with on my old PC. By replacing Windows XP, I moved that unused copy onto my current machine. So you're right, I am eligible for an upgrade to Windows Vista Home Professional, but Home Pro doesn't allow you to send Remote Desktop requests, which is why I went with Ultimate.
I may use that coupon for Home Pro on the MCE machine, but I believe Home Pro is also restricted to 10 network connections (kind of like XP Home was) and that really doesn't sound like something I'd want for a Media/File Server.
I just use the ALC888 HD from Realtek that came on my Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard. It may not be an X-FI, but I have no complaints. Although, I do think the drivers for XP were a little nicer to use than the newer driver for Vista. Since I switch between digital and analog signals a lot, all I did was hit the "Dolby digital" image and it turned off digital processing (i.e. my speakers) and switched to analog (i.e. my headset). For this new driver... my god, I'm still trying to figure out an easy way to switch between the two :P.
I already use Vista and I still game. I have absolutely no issues, albeit everything's still a little bit slower at the moment (nVidia never had mature G80 drivers for XP, why would I expect mature Vista drivers ;)). For me, Vista isn't just about my gaming experience, I want my entire PC experience to improve and I think Vista does that well. I could easily throw my old hard drive back in (with the XP partition still available) and go back, but I don't want to. Vista may have its oddities (UAC stopping programs from saving their settings, etc), but overall I'm satisfied.
Do I think people should upgrade? Maybe, if they really want to. If someone's building a new gaming rig, I'd say to just upgrade now and get it over with. Unfortunately, I planned my new rig a couple months ago when Vista was coming out. Then it was delayed and I ended up having to purchase a copy of Windows XP to put on it. So I now wasted $120 on Windows XP that I don't even use anymore. Why would anyone want to do that (keep your piracy comments to yourself)?
That's because only the Burning Crusade install contains elements found in Outlands, Azuremyst Isle and Quel'Thalas. These were not included in the Burning Crusade content patch as you could not access any of them without BC anyway.
Although the exact opposite works, you can play a non-BC account on a BC installation, because all the components required exist.
Well, to be honest, Blizzard shot themselves in the foot with Warcraft "expanding" when it comes to WoW. The problem is that Blizzard usually sticks very close to their lore and they try to keep everything consistent (although the nerds do find flaws every once in awhile ;)). Now you may wonder, "well man... what's the dilly?"
If Blizzard makes a Warcraft IV, they will be further pushing the lore beyond its current place in WoW. This can quite possibly cut off WoW's ability to truly have expansions as they cannot further the content but rather further the timeline. A game that exists within two different portions of time and is a dynamic MMO world? I just don't see this happening at all unless it involves some cheesy hack.
So in short, WoW probably doomed the idea of another WarCraft RTS game as Blizzard would end up cutting off expansions to WoW, which are quite possibly more lucrative than another WC game ever will be.
Also, the hold feature works just fine, but I'm a bit spoiled, because I have a case that my PSP goes into and I can play it in that case (some Mad Catz travel case thing). It makes the system a bit more bulky, but my screen is in perfect condition.
One thing about the DS, there are touch games that do not cater well toward using a stylus and I do not like touching my screen. This makes me wish Nintendo would've included some screen protectors with the console... at least for the touch screen
Also, you'd only need to use WPA if you didn't have a DS
Also, I wonder why they included Jump Superstars in that originality article but left out the Japanese PSP Brain Trainer game? It's by the same people that made Brain Age and (just like Jump Superstars) is only available in Japan. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'd like to
RLP, the Bleach Wii game is already out and available at importers. Here's the closest importer to me (literally 1 day delivery no matter what option I choose) and they have it:
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:P), and my Onyx never gets played. I use my PSP every day whether it's being used as a gaming console, a music player (which it does a fairly decent job at) or a video player (it does a great job with this). There are a decent amount of titles for it as well as the NDS, but I do have twice as many games for the PSP as the NDS.
http://www.ncsxshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/RVL-P-RBLJ.h
This brings me to a complaint about the Wii... Nintendo did it right with the NDS when they made no region locking. So why did they do it on the Wii? Sony has no region locking on the PS3. Microsoft doesn't enforce region locking on the XBOX 360 (Microsoft does region lock the games that they publish, so games like Kameo, Gears of War and Blue Dragon are locked)... why couldn't Nintendo do this?
I mean, I have a swap disc (FreeLoader) for the GameCube that I use for Naruto Gekito Ninja Taisen 4, but with this new generation and Nintendo's prior lack of region locking, I expected to not have to play the swap game anymore.
Oh and to avoid making more replies, the NDS vs PSP debate above. Personally, I think the PSP offers more than the NDS does overall. I own both the PSP and NDS Lite Onyx (originally had a Polar White but I sold it to buy the Onyx... I like black consoles
- nVidia GeForce 8800GTX (video memory and abilities)
And I actually came out with an incompatability! They said my processor wouldn't be able to handle Rainbow Six Vegas, because it wasn't 3Ghz or higherThere will also be a totally separate Blue Dragon manga serialized in Monthly Jump as well. I forget who the mangaka for this one is, though, as it's not the same person who's doing the Weekly Jump manga. I have the first chapter of the Weekly Jump manga translated, but I haven't actually sat down and read it yet.
Blue Dragon came out on 12/7/2006 in Japan, not last month.
Supposedly Microsoft said that developing Applications for the XBOX 360 using the XBOX's XNA doesn't work as well as it does on the PC. They didn't really say why, but we have to remember that the XBOX 360 runs a modified version of the .NET 2.0 architecture, not the standard version that Windows machines can use.
They also remarked that they are working toward trying to make application development a good possibility.
I believe this information is in the XNA FAQ.
You're right, and that's because the Slim PS2's chip is not the same as the original PS2's EE. When Sony created the Slim-PS2, they integrated the Sound & I/O controller from the original PS2 (i.e. the PSX's original hardware) onto the original PS2's EE, therefore consolidating the main processing into one unit. When sony included the Slim PS2's chip on the PS3, it essentially enabled all functionality (excluding controller use and memory card use (without an adapter)) of the Slim PS2.
Believe it or not, but the reason some Wal-Mart employees do not take the Wal-Mart provided health insurance is because of how poor it really is. For the run-of-the-mill insurance, you've got a good $300 a year that you must pay first and then insurance will begin covering some expenses. Note that some of this is purely off of my memory and some numbers may be off. The thing is... how often do you really visit a doctor that you may end up spending more than $300 a year? Note that this is not just $300 altogether.. this is $300 per medically-covered person.
Trust me, my friend... the light at the end of the tunnel is quite bleak for most Wal-Mart employees. I've had family members work there for whatever reason (and that's how I know about the health insurance), and all I heard about is how poor the environment is, etc. When you're big, the little worker ants that you manage in your large ant farm are nothing to you. One "dies," you simply replace it with another ant that you scoop out of the metaphorical dirt (not to say Wal-Mart employees are dirt/scum or anything like that).
Also, I've been reading other posts in this thread and I'd like to mention a bit about Wal-Mart tactics. When it comes to pricing, Wal-Mart will tell a manufacturer if its price is too high. If it is and the manufacturer won't meet Wal-Mart's expectations... don't expect to see that manufacturer's product in your local Wal-Mart. There aren't many other companies that could use their leverage like that to influence products in their design, manufacturing or pricing. Now, this does theoretically come down to a proposed lower cost to the consumer (at Wal-Mart only, mind you... just 'cause Wal-Mart gets Oreos for $1.50 a bag, doesn't mean Costco does), but what price are we paying for this?
The company simply holds such a powerful grip as they probably serve the majority of the shopping public in the United States. With that said, you can lay the rules as a business needs to sell its product and to lose such a foothold could spell disaster for profits. So, what do you do... lose a little bit of profits having to sell your product to Wal-Mart for less... or never gain any profits for selling your product in Wal-Mart, because they won't stock it. For any executive, the choice is obvious, as much as it seems like corporate bullying to the average consumer.
Actually, region locks were created to avoid a movie being released in one country hurting the sales of the movie being released in another country at a later date. That's why the regions numbers are set the way they are. The United States is Region 1, because they assume that most movies come out in the United States first. So to avoid say... Japanese people from buying the American DVD and hurting sales when the movie is finally released in Japan, they have region locks so they "must" wait for the Region 2 DVD.
;)). I can't remember much about the backward compatability of the PS3 as I've been a bit out of the loop, but if it can play PS2 games, this should let it play ... say a Japanese PS2 game. That'd be quite a sales perk to avoid another system being ruined to a mod-chip just to play an imported game.
Although, about the PS3 being region-free... I have to say I'm quite happy to see this. There've been a few games I would've enjoyed importing (enjoyed enough to ignore the fact that I have no idea what the screen says