Oh geez, the Virtual Boy, I forgot I even had that! I agree, it was their first seriously heavy flop. If they had held out a year or two to either develop a color system or reduce it's size things might have been different. I don't regret buying one, but I wish I had held out for a few more months when everything dropped in price as stores tried to dump their surplus inventory (and had some surplus income to hunt down those few games that existed state-side for the system, there were around 20 right?)
A side note; I remember the Galactic Pinball game I had for it was great, despite the red-only scheme and bulky unit. I actually spent many hours and many batteries playing through the various levels, and might even dig out the system just to give it a go again. It almost justifies buying the console, and was the only pinball game I really enjoyed playing besides Sega's Game Gear version of Sonic Pinball (or was it Spinball?)
Yeah, I'll admit I never did go in for the really old Adventure games, though when they were more point-and-click, or at least arrow and WASD it was easier to play. Of course, if I remember correctly, half of them still required a delicate dance of cryptic commands and wierd sentance structures. Looking back I'm more interested in the older ones for nostalgia (now), but I find my "oh shiny" reaction doesn't help much (I think Myst set the bar pretty high for me early on: simple interface, nice graphics, sounds for everything...)
Geez, the one guy bashes Apple and he gets "Funny", I make a light-hearted counter-parody and I get "Troll", and I'm primarily a Windows user, no less! (this, this is humor, just to clarify.)
I think comedy games lost ground partly due to the development of those trigger-happy genres, which are in turn becoming more complex and diverse to survive (well, some FPS/action games are, others are still bang-bang run-run festivals.) It seems to be about the same as traditional Adventure games, look at what happened to the classics like King's Quest; they tried a 3rd-person hack-and-slash and it flopped. Maybe they need to do what the game in the article is doing, well, at least the idea (wedgies just aren't hip anymore, though maybe more subtle humor will round it out.)
There is an interesting point in the article, which I never considered since I never really played the Leisure Suit games, but he says something about using hints of sex as a way of getting people to try the game. Thinking about it, at least there was a believeable expectation for something like that in the game, at least more than most game advertising these days (box cover + sexy woman + car = never appears in the game.)
Well, more or less true, but those cheap Dells often skimp on decent upgrade slots. Now it's been a while since I dug around, but if they're like the last one I fixed there's probably no AGP/PCIe slot, but only two PCI/PCI-X slots.
The mac Mini is really just an issue of form factor, most PCs of that size couldn't take an upgrade either. On the upside, the $800 mac mini still has rather decent specs for it's size. I only mentioned the laptop since that's the majority of models mention in the previous post (both are computers, I think you meant desktop), and I personally feel that the Mini is roughly a laptop sans the screen/keyboard (and roughly piced appropriately.)
Of course they don't market it as a gamer's machine, though, so this is kind of a moot point. Not marketing it as a media center machine directly isn't helping it much, as I feel that's where it belongs. I think we should wait and see what Apple offers in a tower-format, the pricing of the low-end PowerMacs (or Mac Pros) would be better suited for this discussion.
As an aside, I would really prefer to build my desktops for just this matter, neither Apple's nor Dell's desktops appeal to me price-to-preformance-wise. (hence why I haven't bought a tower since '97, and that was IBM no less) The upside is Windows is licensed for most any machine, unlike having to use the awkward OS X86 process to use Apple's OS on a self-constructed setup.
True, but who expects a laptop under $1500 to be a serious gaming machine? I mean I would have bought the Acer 8200 if I was going for a pure Windows mobile solution that could game (and I'd still be well over the $1500 mark), I fail to see where this fact makes any difference. My last laptop was a Compaq and under 1.5k, it sure as hell wasn't a gaming machine when I bought it. (and it had an Ati Mobility, which quite possibly is even worse than most intel integrated solutions)
Considering the speed of the low-end macbooks it's not suprising the video is poor (gotta cut costs and create a preformance gap between you low and high-end somewhere), you have the same type of thing happening with low-end Dells and ThinkPads, too. Both those manufacturers make fine low-end laptops, but they also use the same crappy integrated graphics (with lots of shared memory, oddly just like my old Compaq...) Also, the 'macs can't game' thing doesn't really mater, it's the same hardware these days (intel chipsets), basically you should say 'Fact: things with integrated graphics can't game', which is just common-knowledge then and would sound equally as ill-considered and quick-typed.
Meh, whatever, I personally don't care which OS I use, Win/Lin boxes outnumber Mac ones in my apt (4:2, just about, though the MBP probably throws a wrench into the statistics a bit), but I just think it's silly for people to keep pushing the 'macs can't game' angle now that they can boot any major OS, it's almost as bad as a mac fanboy without a sense of humor. Almost. Well, no, it's just about as bad... In any case, my experience shows that XP still tops OS X in game preformance, hence why I'm quite happy to reboot and game on, not to mention enjoying the full preformance of my Adobe apps (and Flash 8, which always ran better in Windows, anyways.)
I've been eyeing Rockbox for a while now, if I had one of the other supported mp3 players (or if my old one was supported) I'd toss it on in an instant. I'm pretty tempted, I've been thinking of grabbing a 4th gen and tinkering with it, no doubt it would be the perfect opportunity to tinker with Rockbox (and play Doom, glorious Doom, as well as try different media formats.)
Also, I never really took a close look at the plugins list, whew, quite a selection.
(Mac guy takes off his "Think Different" shirt and has [Apple Logo] + [Direct X] on it)
Mac: Hey now, pass that joystick over here, buddy, I'll show you!
(Fires up latest Quake 8 Mod, which is supported on Vista, OS X, and Linux)
PC: Wait? What? You're both? Oh geez... I bet you went to that army thing, Basic Training or something, right?
Mac: R... right... Well, I figured I could just run the standard Id games on my Mac side (including that new Doom 5 mod, now as the standard UB), but this is so much more fun to watch die-hard mac addicts cinge at me doing it in Windows! Wait, let me switch back and fire up iGamer and get the latest content segment...
I could see iPod games, maybe, or at least something more than Chess on the Mac when you buy it (chess is great, but Ma and Pa like Sollitaire, natch.) The real thing that gets me is, if it's for the iPod, why hasn't anyone else figured out how to get games on it? I've hunted and all I've found have been text games that read like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, but nothing like what currently resides there. It's a shame really, since I used to load my PDA down with distractions for long trips when it was my music player. If they are making games, maybe they'll take more advantage of the 1-100 read-out on the touch wheel, having a full range of directional control and not just a scroll wheel. The real kicker would be a licensing deal with a company to sell old console games emulated on the iPod, but that's not likely due to the button arangement. Still, I can hope, right?
Actually, I just remembered, this could have been so much better if they opened up the licensing to allow remixing and editing, didn't NIN do that and give out Garage Band files of the work too? Maybe they'll open it up by hosting it past the 24th, even torrent it, that'd at least add some credibility and promote the "share" aspect they seem to be pushing, at least one would hope.
It's an interesting move, though in a way it feels a bit like they're jumping on the bandwagon. Of course, the bandwagon can always use some big names on it, right? The quality of the file is pretty nice, beats the usual tiny mpeg smattered with MTV and various other station logos, especially in the day of dumb animated logos and advertisments.
Actually, if you're going to go that route, I'd say get the MacBook, then use Parallels, which uses the new Virtualization support on the Yonahs. Compaired to booting directly to XP there was almost equal preformance (only drops were ones that were gpu-dependant) and it will retail for about $50 when it's through testing, the only downside is that there's no video acceleration yet, else I'd remove my Windows partition on my MBP and just use that.
I know that, with boot camp, you can use the original user-made dual boot hack to triple boot, of course it means you'd have to pass through two boot selection areas, but I don't think anything prevents you from setting the proper auto-boot options. I can't vouch for the ease of use or stability of this method, though, as I haven't tried it yet myself (still using the old laptop the MBP replaced for Linux testing, I figure if it'll run without major headaches on some obscure Compaq it's gotta be good!)
I just recieved my Week 13 W8613 and don't have screen issues, wifi issues, or screen noise, but have processor noise (easily jerryrigged for now) and a rather warm (luckly use the carrying case as a rest) MBP. If they're replacing them finally I think I might wait a bit until they get it down pat, as some people returned early revisions and got back partially improved ones just last week when the Week 12s rolled out, among the issues still present was the odd processor noise. I'm just happy they don't suffer from the wierd reflector line issues of the final Pb revisions, which I returned since it was so annoying to me when I tried to do design work on it. I'd take a quickly remedied cpu noise over a never remedied LCD issue.
*Admittedly it seems to become the hottest on the highest preformance setting, which seems obvious, I guess. Supposedly resetting the PMU actually reduces the heat a bit, but I've yet to try it myself, and sort of feel it has a placebo effect, but hey, worth a shot.
I lowered my voltage from 1.45 to 1.2 a few months ago and have yet to have issues, for a while I used it at 1.25 but eventually did the slow test down to 1.2 and haven't crashed from it yet, though going below gave me a one-way ticket to the power button. This is the same voltage as the minimum clock speed, so I find it kind of wierd, though with full throttle down and low voltage I never risk the fan whirring up like the full speed and the lower voltage setting, which causes both annoyance (audibly, the fan is aging poorly) and increased power consumption.
I've been using RM-Clock to run my 1500+ (1.33Ghz) in my laptop at 1.2V instead of 1.45V and haven't noticed any major slow-down, I would believe there is a slight decrease, but nothing near what running it at 530Mhz (lowest possible stable speed) and 1.2V would produce. I've found it to be a fantastic way to improve the battery life of the three year old battery (I could upgrade, but that costs money and RM-Clock is free.) I've noticed Sandra says my cpu can go down to 1.08V, but effectively to keep functioning (and not reduce the clock) it needed to be at 1.2V, minimum. The voltage and clock speed aren't directly tied, so it leaves some wiggle room, it would seem, as both experience and this article show.
Also, a key thing I noticed is that even if the lower voltage may hurt preformance, my FSB is at full speed when I clock to max with lowered voltage, unlike the reduced FSB at lowest clock with lowest voltage, so even if I lose some preformance, it still beats the pants off the normal reduced power settings.
Also, if anything, it at least keeps my fan quiet for longer, it's got a nice "replace me" buzz going and I haven't the time to do the work, so this works as a nice side effect.
It's used in every MMO, it used to be the hot topic in EQ1 way back, people used to be able to KS really easy then too, so ninja looters were a real pain.
You make a good point, if this was a serious and not 'funny' post I wonder if the poster is a big gamer, I mean this is a prevalent term these days if you play an MMO, but non-existent in most other game genres.
I Think the real propblem here is not so much gold farmers, but the racist stereotypes people use in-game, I feel like I hopped a time train 150 years back every time a farmer is mentioned in guild or general, it's pathetic, and I have a feeling half the of the younger people don't even realize how terrible they are when they promote it.
I don't know if you could call it over-the-top, I can see where associating the films could lead to a reminder of racial slurs, which in turn leads to offending someone. When you see that the site was relating unrelated content to other films, though, it does soften the severity of it, but it doesn't change that fact that it's already become so infamous.
The best part about the last time it was posted was that the first post in it links to the previous posting before that. If only the above astute comment could get bumped up top to continue the tradition... which we'll then get to see 2 months from now when a similar article get posted...
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Oh geez, the Virtual Boy, I forgot I even had that! I agree, it was their first seriously heavy flop. If they had held out a year or two to either develop a color system or reduce it's size things might have been different. I don't regret buying one, but I wish I had held out for a few more months when everything dropped in price as stores tried to dump their surplus inventory (and had some surplus income to hunt down those few games that existed state-side for the system, there were around 20 right?) A side note; I remember the Galactic Pinball game I had for it was great, despite the red-only scheme and bulky unit. I actually spent many hours and many batteries playing through the various levels, and might even dig out the system just to give it a go again. It almost justifies buying the console, and was the only pinball game I really enjoyed playing besides Sega's Game Gear version of Sonic Pinball (or was it Spinball?)
Ah it happens, with the pile-up of acronyms it's only a matter of time before they start to come out randomly.
Bah, the PSP3 will totally be crushed by the Wii DS Lite.
Yeah, I'll admit I never did go in for the really old Adventure games, though when they were more point-and-click, or at least arrow and WASD it was easier to play. Of course, if I remember correctly, half of them still required a delicate dance of cryptic commands and wierd sentance structures. Looking back I'm more interested in the older ones for nostalgia (now), but I find my "oh shiny" reaction doesn't help much (I think Myst set the bar pretty high for me early on: simple interface, nice graphics, sounds for everything...)
Geez, the one guy bashes Apple and he gets "Funny", I make a light-hearted counter-parody and I get "Troll", and I'm primarily a Windows user, no less! (this, this is humor, just to clarify.)
I think comedy games lost ground partly due to the development of those trigger-happy genres, which are in turn becoming more complex and diverse to survive (well, some FPS/action games are, others are still bang-bang run-run festivals.) It seems to be about the same as traditional Adventure games, look at what happened to the classics like King's Quest; they tried a 3rd-person hack-and-slash and it flopped. Maybe they need to do what the game in the article is doing, well, at least the idea (wedgies just aren't hip anymore, though maybe more subtle humor will round it out.)
There is an interesting point in the article, which I never considered since I never really played the Leisure Suit games, but he says something about using hints of sex as a way of getting people to try the game. Thinking about it, at least there was a believeable expectation for something like that in the game, at least more than most game advertising these days (box cover + sexy woman + car = never appears in the game.)
Well, more or less true, but those cheap Dells often skimp on decent upgrade slots. Now it's been a while since I dug around, but if they're like the last one I fixed there's probably no AGP/PCIe slot, but only two PCI/PCI-X slots.
The mac Mini is really just an issue of form factor, most PCs of that size couldn't take an upgrade either. On the upside, the $800 mac mini still has rather decent specs for it's size. I only mentioned the laptop since that's the majority of models mention in the previous post (both are computers, I think you meant desktop), and I personally feel that the Mini is roughly a laptop sans the screen/keyboard (and roughly piced appropriately.)
Of course they don't market it as a gamer's machine, though, so this is kind of a moot point. Not marketing it as a media center machine directly isn't helping it much, as I feel that's where it belongs. I think we should wait and see what Apple offers in a tower-format, the pricing of the low-end PowerMacs (or Mac Pros) would be better suited for this discussion.
As an aside, I would really prefer to build my desktops for just this matter, neither Apple's nor Dell's desktops appeal to me price-to-preformance-wise. (hence why I haven't bought a tower since '97, and that was IBM no less) The upside is Windows is licensed for most any machine, unlike having to use the awkward OS X86 process to use Apple's OS on a self-constructed setup.
True, but who expects a laptop under $1500 to be a serious gaming machine? I mean I would have bought the Acer 8200 if I was going for a pure Windows mobile solution that could game (and I'd still be well over the $1500 mark), I fail to see where this fact makes any difference. My last laptop was a Compaq and under 1.5k, it sure as hell wasn't a gaming machine when I bought it. (and it had an Ati Mobility, which quite possibly is even worse than most intel integrated solutions)
Considering the speed of the low-end macbooks it's not suprising the video is poor (gotta cut costs and create a preformance gap between you low and high-end somewhere), you have the same type of thing happening with low-end Dells and ThinkPads, too. Both those manufacturers make fine low-end laptops, but they also use the same crappy integrated graphics (with lots of shared memory, oddly just like my old Compaq...) Also, the 'macs can't game' thing doesn't really mater, it's the same hardware these days (intel chipsets), basically you should say 'Fact: things with integrated graphics can't game', which is just common-knowledge then and would sound equally as ill-considered and quick-typed.
Meh, whatever, I personally don't care which OS I use, Win/Lin boxes outnumber Mac ones in my apt (4:2, just about, though the MBP probably throws a wrench into the statistics a bit), but I just think it's silly for people to keep pushing the 'macs can't game' angle now that they can boot any major OS, it's almost as bad as a mac fanboy without a sense of humor. Almost. Well, no, it's just about as bad... In any case, my experience shows that XP still tops OS X in game preformance, hence why I'm quite happy to reboot and game on, not to mention enjoying the full preformance of my Adobe apps (and Flash 8, which always ran better in Windows, anyways.)
I've been eyeing Rockbox for a while now, if I had one of the other supported mp3 players (or if my old one was supported) I'd toss it on in an instant. I'm pretty tempted, I've been thinking of grabbing a 4th gen and tinkering with it, no doubt it would be the perfect opportunity to tinker with Rockbox (and play Doom, glorious Doom, as well as try different media formats.)
Also, I never really took a close look at the plugins list, whew, quite a selection.
(Mac guy takes off his "Think Different" shirt and has [Apple Logo] + [Direct X] on it)
Mac: Hey now, pass that joystick over here, buddy, I'll show you!
(Fires up latest Quake 8 Mod, which is supported on Vista, OS X, and Linux)
PC: Wait? What? You're both? Oh geez... I bet you went to that army thing, Basic Training or something, right?
Mac: R... right... Well, I figured I could just run the standard Id games on my Mac side (including that new Doom 5 mod, now as the standard UB), but this is so much more fun to watch die-hard mac addicts cinge at me doing it in Windows! Wait, let me switch back and fire up iGamer and get the latest content segment...
(torrented game network launches, updates, closes, 10.5 sure beats 10.4's improvements)
Mac: There we go, now where was that health pack again?
(Fade to black MacBook)
The new platf...
(Whoops, integrated graphics, fade over to the much better MacBook Pro, there we go)
The new platform for work, games... Life.
(Pop up Apple logo with a controller trailing from it)
I could see iPod games, maybe, or at least something more than Chess on the Mac when you buy it (chess is great, but Ma and Pa like Sollitaire, natch.) The real thing that gets me is, if it's for the iPod, why hasn't anyone else figured out how to get games on it? I've hunted and all I've found have been text games that read like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, but nothing like what currently resides there. It's a shame really, since I used to load my PDA down with distractions for long trips when it was my music player. If they are making games, maybe they'll take more advantage of the 1-100 read-out on the touch wheel, having a full range of directional control and not just a scroll wheel. The real kicker would be a licensing deal with a company to sell old console games emulated on the iPod, but that's not likely due to the button arangement. Still, I can hope, right?
Actually, I just remembered, this could have been so much better if they opened up the licensing to allow remixing and editing, didn't NIN do that and give out Garage Band files of the work too? Maybe they'll open it up by hosting it past the 24th, even torrent it, that'd at least add some credibility and promote the "share" aspect they seem to be pushing, at least one would hope.
It's an interesting move, though in a way it feels a bit like they're jumping on the bandwagon. Of course, the bandwagon can always use some big names on it, right? The quality of the file is pretty nice, beats the usual tiny mpeg smattered with MTV and various other station logos, especially in the day of dumb animated logos and advertisments.
Actually, if you're going to go that route, I'd say get the MacBook, then use Parallels, which uses the new Virtualization support on the Yonahs. Compaired to booting directly to XP there was almost equal preformance (only drops were ones that were gpu-dependant) and it will retail for about $50 when it's through testing, the only downside is that there's no video acceleration yet, else I'd remove my Windows partition on my MBP and just use that. I know that, with boot camp, you can use the original user-made dual boot hack to triple boot, of course it means you'd have to pass through two boot selection areas, but I don't think anything prevents you from setting the proper auto-boot options. I can't vouch for the ease of use or stability of this method, though, as I haven't tried it yet myself (still using the old laptop the MBP replaced for Linux testing, I figure if it'll run without major headaches on some obscure Compaq it's gotta be good!)
I just recieved my Week 13 W8613 and don't have screen issues, wifi issues, or screen noise, but have processor noise (easily jerryrigged for now) and a rather warm (luckly use the carrying case as a rest) MBP. If they're replacing them finally I think I might wait a bit until they get it down pat, as some people returned early revisions and got back partially improved ones just last week when the Week 12s rolled out, among the issues still present was the odd processor noise. I'm just happy they don't suffer from the wierd reflector line issues of the final Pb revisions, which I returned since it was so annoying to me when I tried to do design work on it. I'd take a quickly remedied cpu noise over a never remedied LCD issue. *Admittedly it seems to become the hottest on the highest preformance setting, which seems obvious, I guess. Supposedly resetting the PMU actually reduces the heat a bit, but I've yet to try it myself, and sort of feel it has a placebo effect, but hey, worth a shot.
I lowered my voltage from 1.45 to 1.2 a few months ago and have yet to have issues, for a while I used it at 1.25 but eventually did the slow test down to 1.2 and haven't crashed from it yet, though going below gave me a one-way ticket to the power button. This is the same voltage as the minimum clock speed, so I find it kind of wierd, though with full throttle down and low voltage I never risk the fan whirring up like the full speed and the lower voltage setting, which causes both annoyance (audibly, the fan is aging poorly) and increased power consumption.
I've been using RM-Clock to run my 1500+ (1.33Ghz) in my laptop at 1.2V instead of 1.45V and haven't noticed any major slow-down, I would believe there is a slight decrease, but nothing near what running it at 530Mhz (lowest possible stable speed) and 1.2V would produce. I've found it to be a fantastic way to improve the battery life of the three year old battery (I could upgrade, but that costs money and RM-Clock is free.) I've noticed Sandra says my cpu can go down to 1.08V, but effectively to keep functioning (and not reduce the clock) it needed to be at 1.2V, minimum. The voltage and clock speed aren't directly tied, so it leaves some wiggle room, it would seem, as both experience and this article show. Also, a key thing I noticed is that even if the lower voltage may hurt preformance, my FSB is at full speed when I clock to max with lowered voltage, unlike the reduced FSB at lowest clock with lowest voltage, so even if I lose some preformance, it still beats the pants off the normal reduced power settings. Also, if anything, it at least keeps my fan quiet for longer, it's got a nice "replace me" buzz going and I haven't the time to do the work, so this works as a nice side effect.
It's used in every MMO, it used to be the hot topic in EQ1 way back, people used to be able to KS really easy then too, so ninja looters were a real pain. You make a good point, if this was a serious and not 'funny' post I wonder if the poster is a big gamer, I mean this is a prevalent term these days if you play an MMO, but non-existent in most other game genres. I Think the real propblem here is not so much gold farmers, but the racist stereotypes people use in-game, I feel like I hopped a time train 150 years back every time a farmer is mentioned in guild or general, it's pathetic, and I have a feeling half the of the younger people don't even realize how terrible they are when they promote it.
I don't know if you could call it over-the-top, I can see where associating the films could lead to a reminder of racial slurs, which in turn leads to offending someone. When you see that the site was relating unrelated content to other films, though, it does soften the severity of it, but it doesn't change that fact that it's already become so infamous.
The best part about the last time it was posted was that the first post in it links to the previous posting before that. If only the above astute comment could get bumped up top to continue the tradition... which we'll then get to see 2 months from now when a similar article get posted...