Re:Am I the only one...
on
BioShock Backlash
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Why is it that everyone claiming that bioshock really IS all that is good and right in a game ignores the arguments against that position that actually have substance. Things like the DRM clusterfuck and bloody wierd mouse controls, tallscreen FOV, and the player character's lack of impact on the world. Did anyone ever figure out how on earth the sensitivity manages to slowly change over time after loading and saving?
As a player of the 360 version, none of that really applied to me. While I am playing on a widescreen and did read the FOV comments before I started after a few minutes I decided it wasn't nearly as bad as people made it out to be. That and most of the other bugs you mentioned were all fixed in the patch that was just released.
As for the player's lack of effect on the world... well... did you pay attention to the story at all? The whole story revolves around how the world effected YOU, you play the grunt, the pawn in the bigger story... something tells me that not changing the world around you was by design. This wasn't Fable or Oblivion where you're the hero of the hour every hour, Bioshock's story has you play the role of a slave.
In all fairness, in the PC world developers can have their software DRM and allow open garage development too... there's no reason Consoles couldn't block piracy and allow open development at the same time.
I agree that the 360's "express" SDK is very open minded for the console world, but IMO it's not a replacement for "homebrew" unless they allow non-developers access to use the garage developed content without buying their own developer license... that and more access to the hardware, not being able to use any of the major I/O functions of the 360 makes it kind of lame for anything but XBLA game development, and even then it's limiting when you think of some of the more interesting stuff you might be able to do with the hardware if you had access to the USB ports, hard drive, disc drive, ethernet, or XBL.
Maybe, maybe not. I was thinking more along the lines of a time-line that started slightly before Bioshock 1 but eventually caught up and ran synonymously with it... Maybe such that you ran across some of the aftermath of Bioshock 1's protagonist or had your storyline otherwise effected by his actions. Just enough to intertwine the two but not enough that you felt like you were playing the fly on the wall the whole time.
If you ever played the Blade Runner PC game it does an amazing job of this where you play a completely different detective out of the same office as Harrison Ford's character, you see some of the same locations and there are are lots of other references to events from the movie (like you might overhear an NPC talking about a movie event) but the story you play and the characters you meet are all completely separate and unique they just happen to be set in the same fantasy world and during roughly the same time period as the movie.
I only suggested starting early enough to see the collapse of Rapture to help put a different perspective on the game world, not that it starts AND FINISHES before the first game.
The problem I forsee is that while parents might be able to ensure their kids only play appropriate games at home, it is very difficult to do the same at the homes of their children's friends, where a different set of parents (or older siblings) are the responsible parties. It is entirely possible that a 15 year old kid, or some well-meaning, but "hands-off" parents wouldn't think to prevent a 6 year old neighbor from playing any game in their video game library.
In other words, being a responsible parent is harder than some people think.
I don't know any "responsible parent" that would let their child go under the supervision of another adult without first speaking with said adult and sorting out things like not allowing them access to violent or pornographic media.
I'm not quite sure how a "sequel" would work considering in the end the game does one of those X years later here's where he is now... and you die.
It would seem to me that the best course of action would probably be along the lines of the story from a different perspective perhaps reliving the events leading up to the collapse of Rapture from the perspective of one of the citizens. The world they created in the game was far to rich and interesting to simply dump for a new story. I want more rapture but I don't necessarily want more of the same story or characters.
Around 120 million PS2s have been shipped to date. That's ~80 million more PS2s than all three next gen consoles combined. Granted many will have broken/been discarded/packed away/etc, but that still leaves a helluvalot of working PS2s out there. EA's mission is to sell games and customers don't typically buy games for systems they don't have.
A large installed base will only get you so far... From a publisher's perspective you also have to look at the average PS2 (or whatever) console owner's willingness to buy new games.
120 Million units world wide doesn't mean anything if none of them are interested in buying your new X. PS2 games are still selling fairly strong, but NOTHING compared to how they were doing a year ago, or the year before that. As the install base gets larger and the console's entry point gets lower you get a much larger percentage of people who buy the console "just for guitar hero" or "just for Grand Theft Auto" or just for X and completely ignore everything else.
In generally the willingness to buy new PS2 games in on a sharp decline while the willingness to buy "now-gen" games is growing every day. If you start developing your game now how much will the market have changed, and in which direction, by the time you finish your game?
you're right... I think the GP is forgetting the "unsolicited part"
For instance I sign up for the NewEgg newsletter which is essentially a digital coupon flier. But I signed up for it intentionally because I'm interested in the products they sell. Someone else might have accidentally checked that box (or neglected to uncheck it depending on the site) when ordering something and now they get what they THINK is spam but it's really not because it's not unsolicited.
IMO this is part of the "spam problem" because legitimate newsletters and other bulk mail that was "requested" gets marked as spam and added to the filter programs by users who don't realize that they actually requested it... unfortunately I fear that this includes most computer users.
Bob Slydell: Well just a second there, professor. We uh, we fixed the glitch. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it will just work itself out naturally.
Bob Porter: We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem solved from your end.
It's not a technical issue, it's not even a marketing issue, it's a political issue.
There is a strict and time consuming certification process that needs to take place before you can sell media in the UK and other parts of Europe... Region coding aside I'm sure most studios wouldn't mind doing a simultaneous or release or a staggered release separated by only a few days, but when big brother needs to taste test everything before they let you have it... well that can cause massive delays.
...Not everyone has the resources to build/rent a studio and make masters. And throwing up your mp3s on the band web site is trivial when you're a local hit and expecting a couple thousand downloads; it's not quite the same when you're hoping for millions of downloads. Putting together a tour of college town bars with an old VW van is not quite the same as organizing an international tour of stadiums....
When was the last time you tried to do any of that stuff?
A lot of hard work is required sure but it's not as money intensive as you think. My younger brother was in a local band for a while, he's not any more but he's still friends with the former members and during that time they got an album recorded... it cost a few hundred bucks and the quality is just as good as any major label CD you'd buy in the store (arguably better than some). Having a few hundred discs pressed and packaged complete with artwork was a few hundred more... Essentially they got an physical product they could sell at shows for less than the cost of a new gaming rig.
As for touring/getting noticed etc. while my brothers band broke up one of the guys started a new band and decided to just tour and promote their website instead of selling physical CDs, booking shows the next city over a few weeks in advance and moving around the country that way. By the end of the tour they had a record deal with an indy label and are making quite a bit from iTunes download alone, enough that they all bought BMWs and have an actual tour bus and roadies.
My brother is in school now for video production. he has another friend who writes his own music, he saved and spent a couple grand on his own recording equipment, plays local shows and sells his music online, my brother produced a music video for him using his own camera (Cannon GL2) and put it on YouTube. It became the #3 most watched video the week it was put up and now his friend is making enough from his online sales that he was able to quit his day job and concentrate on his music full time.
My Uncle is a local Jazz musician, is digitally distributed and has pressed several cds which he sells through his website, and the indy label also distributes to record stores in this region of the US. He also works part time as a music instructor.
NONE of these people are superstars... but, they're all making a living in the music industry outside of the RIAA and without the "resources" of a major label... Not everyone in the music industry wants or needs to be a multimillionaire superstar... some are quite content to do what they love and make enough money doing it to live comfortably.
If you had that much of a problem with the recent movies I'm sure you'll love the fact that in the upcoming "GI Joe" Movie they aren't "Real American Heroes" but instead work for the UN.
I have worked for a company where there was no process, or the process was that bad, development was done on production machines and developers were given bad information.
Interesting points on the implications of considering a zygote a citizen/protected under the law. And you're absolutely right that there are a lot of medical and social situations where an abortion would be necessary/warranted. This is why I tend to stay away from the Abortion debate, mostly because I haven't really thought about it much...
...though I suppose, as you said, that makes me pro-choice. And you're right, I don't think we should throw doctors in jail for performing abortions.
You are completely right but for the wrong reason. DRM on the files has nothing to do with why external media cannot be used... External USB mass storage devices are READ ONLY and the console simply doesn't look in those locations for game content. So not only can you not download to those devices, if you managed to put game content on them (using any number of readily available and legal PC tools) the console will never check for content there.
As for those PC tools you can go to your local BestBuy or Gamestop and pickup transfer kits for moving any content from your hard drive or Memory Unit back and forth between the devices and your PC... they do have DRM on them so you can't do much with them but the option is there if you wanted to archive your downloaded content on your PC to make room new things to download.
Personally I have a Memory Unit Transfer kit that I use to backup my save games every so often... I figure I backup my PC data... why not my Game data. Backing up XBLA games and other downloadable content isn't all that important though because the XBL marketplace knows you own it and will let you re-download it any time you like.
They're tied to the console AND your Xbox Live profile (and to be clear everyone who downloads the game will have an Xbox live profile and most Xbox Live profiles do not have an associated subscription fee despite popular belief).
This mean that YES you CAN take your hard drive to another console and play your downloaded games but you'll have to also sign into your Xbox Live account to validate that you're the content owner. The problem comes when you try to use it on the new console and you don't have internet connectivity to sign in or someone other than the content owner (spouse, sibling, child, roommate, etc.) tries to use it on their profile but cannot since the content see not validation from the console or profile at that point.
Perhaps I worded my intent poorly... I wasn't condoning the ability of states to override the constitution, simply stating that they need more power and the federal government needs less.
From your response I gather that you feel the barring of abortions to be violation of the Constitution and that it's purely a religious issue. As for abortion, IMO it's not a religious issue... sure the religious zealots have a strong pro-life stance but religion aside if you believe that life exists at conception wouldn't abortion violate that unborn person's right to live? Is the right to abort the "inconvenience" of pregnancy more important than that unborn person's right to live?
I'm not a religious person but I've always considered that consensual unprotected sex to be a sort of physical contract agreeing to pregnancy with abortion a violation of that contract at the expense of someone else's life.
Of course that all depends on when you believe life exists, I don't know personally and I don't pretend to know and that's why I don't personally have a stance on abortion... this is all just food for thought.
they might get fixed... with every update that adds games they usually improve just as many past profiles as well. With that said PGR2 is a great title but owning a 360 I'd much rather be playing PGR4 these days.
well, they're rolling down the ability to download Xbox 1 games thought the marketplace soon. Reports indicate that these will be little more than disc rips of the original games running on the BC feature of the console.
As nice a media piece about them still "caring" about BC on the 360 at this point I have no doubt it's driven by money... the more they support in BC the more they can pad their Xbox 1 download catalog when they roll it out (probably around the same time as the update).
The Abortion issues aside the idea of letting individual states decide on topics like this is a very good idea IMO.
We are after all "The United States..." not "The Federal Government..." As much as individual rights have gone to the wayside so have state rights with the Federal Goverment basically holding the states hostage in terms of adopting their national policies instead of choosing for themselves.
How can we expect individual preferences to be respected if we can't even respect the majority preferences of a state sized community?
The senior legislators have absolutely no idea about what is internet. They think it is a series of tubes and have a bevy of secretaries and aides who would print out the emails and show it to them.
I'm sure on a whole they don't "Get it" but I do believe most understand it better than you give them credit for.
What disturbs me is the fact that they understand the bill is flawed but want to pass it anyway because it will provide some semblance of protection... It's not the first time I've heard of a bill described in this way... it's quite troubling honestly since when are we so lazy that we can't redraft something we know to be wrong but instead just pass it and figure out how to deal with the fall out later.
Something tells me the self-centered and generally lazy nature of the up coming generation wont do much to fix THAT problem...
I believe the GP was referring to cores when stating "CPU"... if you actually bothered to read the entirety of their post you would have seen that they cited the 360 and several of it's games as examples of how modern multi-core CPUs _DO_ allow you multi-task/do things while loading.
it's the reason why the 360 can do those things... and the Xbox 1 did not.
Slashdot Mirror
As for the player's lack of effect on the world... well... did you pay attention to the story at all? The whole story revolves around how the world effected YOU, you play the grunt, the pawn in the bigger story... something tells me that not changing the world around you was by design. This wasn't Fable or Oblivion where you're the hero of the hour every hour, Bioshock's story has you play the role of a slave.
Thanks, I was wondering who the two brave souls were that actually voted against it.
I know how you feel... "but... I spent $500 on that 4meg hard drive!"
/. posters should pool all our old equipment together and open a chain of computer museums.
Maybe us
In all fairness, in the PC world developers can have their software DRM and allow open garage development too... there's no reason Consoles couldn't block piracy and allow open development at the same time.
I agree that the 360's "express" SDK is very open minded for the console world, but IMO it's not a replacement for "homebrew" unless they allow non-developers access to use the garage developed content without buying their own developer license... that and more access to the hardware, not being able to use any of the major I/O functions of the 360 makes it kind of lame for anything but XBLA game development, and even then it's limiting when you think of some of the more interesting stuff you might be able to do with the hardware if you had access to the USB ports, hard drive, disc drive, ethernet, or XBL.
Maybe, maybe not. I was thinking more along the lines of a time-line that started slightly before Bioshock 1 but eventually caught up and ran synonymously with it... Maybe such that you ran across some of the aftermath of Bioshock 1's protagonist or had your storyline otherwise effected by his actions. Just enough to intertwine the two but not enough that you felt like you were playing the fly on the wall the whole time.
If you ever played the Blade Runner PC game it does an amazing job of this where you play a completely different detective out of the same office as Harrison Ford's character, you see some of the same locations and there are are lots of other references to events from the movie (like you might overhear an NPC talking about a movie event) but the story you play and the characters you meet are all completely separate and unique they just happen to be set in the same fantasy world and during roughly the same time period as the movie.
I only suggested starting early enough to see the collapse of Rapture to help put a different perspective on the game world, not that it starts AND FINISHES before the first game.
I'm not quite sure how a "sequel" would work considering in the end the game does one of those X years later here's where he is now... and you die.
It would seem to me that the best course of action would probably be along the lines of the story from a different perspective perhaps reliving the events leading up to the collapse of Rapture from the perspective of one of the citizens. The world they created in the game was far to rich and interesting to simply dump for a new story. I want more rapture but I don't necessarily want more of the same story or characters.
120 Million units world wide doesn't mean anything if none of them are interested in buying your new X. PS2 games are still selling fairly strong, but NOTHING compared to how they were doing a year ago, or the year before that. As the install base gets larger and the console's entry point gets lower you get a much larger percentage of people who buy the console "just for guitar hero" or "just for Grand Theft Auto" or just for X and completely ignore everything else.
In generally the willingness to buy new PS2 games in on a sharp decline while the willingness to buy "now-gen" games is growing every day. If you start developing your game now how much will the market have changed, and in which direction, by the time you finish your game?
you're right... I think the GP is forgetting the "unsolicited part"
For instance I sign up for the NewEgg newsletter which is essentially a digital coupon flier. But I signed up for it intentionally because I'm interested in the products they sell. Someone else might have accidentally checked that box (or neglected to uncheck it depending on the site) when ordering something and now they get what they THINK is spam but it's really not because it's not unsolicited.
IMO this is part of the "spam problem" because legitimate newsletters and other bulk mail that was "requested" gets marked as spam and added to the filter programs by users who don't realize that they actually requested it... unfortunately I fear that this includes most computer users.
No, not the Chocolate Rain guy. I don't think his video was featured on YouTube, it just got linked around a lot, I could be wrong though.
1 week is fine but months or more? their loss.
It's not a technical issue, it's not even a marketing issue, it's a political issue.
There is a strict and time consuming certification process that needs to take place before you can sell media in the UK and other parts of Europe... Region coding aside I'm sure most studios wouldn't mind doing a simultaneous or release or a staggered release separated by only a few days, but when big brother needs to taste test everything before they let you have it... well that can cause massive delays.
A lot of hard work is required sure but it's not as money intensive as you think. My younger brother was in a local band for a while, he's not any more but he's still friends with the former members and during that time they got an album recorded... it cost a few hundred bucks and the quality is just as good as any major label CD you'd buy in the store (arguably better than some). Having a few hundred discs pressed and packaged complete with artwork was a few hundred more... Essentially they got an physical product they could sell at shows for less than the cost of a new gaming rig.
As for touring/getting noticed etc. while my brothers band broke up one of the guys started a new band and decided to just tour and promote their website instead of selling physical CDs, booking shows the next city over a few weeks in advance and moving around the country that way. By the end of the tour they had a record deal with an indy label and are making quite a bit from iTunes download alone, enough that they all bought BMWs and have an actual tour bus and roadies.
My brother is in school now for video production. he has another friend who writes his own music, he saved and spent a couple grand on his own recording equipment, plays local shows and sells his music online, my brother produced a music video for him using his own camera (Cannon GL2) and put it on YouTube. It became the #3 most watched video the week it was put up and now his friend is making enough from his online sales that he was able to quit his day job and concentrate on his music full time.
My Uncle is a local Jazz musician, is digitally distributed and has pressed several cds which he sells through his website, and the indy label also distributes to record stores in this region of the US. He also works part time as a music instructor.
NONE of these people are superstars... but, they're all making a living in the music industry outside of the RIAA and without the "resources" of a major label... Not everyone in the music industry wants or needs to be a multimillionaire superstar... some are quite content to do what they love and make enough money doing it to live comfortably.
If you had that much of a problem with the recent movies I'm sure you'll love the fact that in the upcoming "GI Joe" Movie they aren't "Real American Heroes" but instead work for the UN.
Interesting points on the implications of considering a zygote a citizen/protected under the law. And you're absolutely right that there are a lot of medical and social situations where an abortion would be necessary/warranted. This is why I tend to stay away from the Abortion debate, mostly because I haven't really thought about it much...
...though I suppose, as you said, that makes me pro-choice. And you're right, I don't think we should throw doctors in jail for performing abortions.
You are completely right but for the wrong reason. DRM on the files has nothing to do with why external media cannot be used... External USB mass storage devices are READ ONLY and the console simply doesn't look in those locations for game content. So not only can you not download to those devices, if you managed to put game content on them (using any number of readily available and legal PC tools) the console will never check for content there.
As for those PC tools you can go to your local BestBuy or Gamestop and pickup transfer kits for moving any content from your hard drive or Memory Unit back and forth between the devices and your PC... they do have DRM on them so you can't do much with them but the option is there if you wanted to archive your downloaded content on your PC to make room new things to download.
Personally I have a Memory Unit Transfer kit that I use to backup my save games every so often... I figure I backup my PC data... why not my Game data. Backing up XBLA games and other downloadable content isn't all that important though because the XBL marketplace knows you own it and will let you re-download it any time you like.
They're tied to the console AND your Xbox Live profile (and to be clear everyone who downloads the game will have an Xbox live profile and most Xbox Live profiles do not have an associated subscription fee despite popular belief).
This mean that YES you CAN take your hard drive to another console and play your downloaded games but you'll have to also sign into your Xbox Live account to validate that you're the content owner. The problem comes when you try to use it on the new console and you don't have internet connectivity to sign in or someone other than the content owner (spouse, sibling, child, roommate, etc.) tries to use it on their profile but cannot since the content see not validation from the console or profile at that point.
Perhaps I worded my intent poorly... I wasn't condoning the ability of states to override the constitution, simply stating that they need more power and the federal government needs less.
From your response I gather that you feel the barring of abortions to be violation of the Constitution and that it's purely a religious issue. As for abortion, IMO it's not a religious issue... sure the religious zealots have a strong pro-life stance but religion aside if you believe that life exists at conception wouldn't abortion violate that unborn person's right to live? Is the right to abort the "inconvenience" of pregnancy more important than that unborn person's right to live?
I'm not a religious person but I've always considered that consensual unprotected sex to be a sort of physical contract agreeing to pregnancy with abortion a violation of that contract at the expense of someone else's life.
Of course that all depends on when you believe life exists, I don't know personally and I don't pretend to know and that's why I don't personally have a stance on abortion... this is all just food for thought.
they might get fixed... with every update that adds games they usually improve just as many past profiles as well. With that said PGR2 is a great title but owning a 360 I'd much rather be playing PGR4 these days.
well, they're rolling down the ability to download Xbox 1 games thought the marketplace soon. Reports indicate that these will be little more than disc rips of the original games running on the BC feature of the console.
As nice a media piece about them still "caring" about BC on the 360 at this point I have no doubt it's driven by money... the more they support in BC the more they can pad their Xbox 1 download catalog when they roll it out (probably around the same time as the update).
The Abortion issues aside the idea of letting individual states decide on topics like this is a very good idea IMO.
We are after all "The United States..." not "The Federal Government..." As much as individual rights have gone to the wayside so have state rights with the Federal Goverment basically holding the states hostage in terms of adopting their national policies instead of choosing for themselves.
How can we expect individual preferences to be respected if we can't even respect the majority preferences of a state sized community?
What disturbs me is the fact that they understand the bill is flawed but want to pass it anyway because it will provide some semblance of protection... It's not the first time I've heard of a bill described in this way... it's quite troubling honestly since when are we so lazy that we can't redraft something we know to be wrong but instead just pass it and figure out how to deal with the fall out later.
Something tells me the self-centered and generally lazy nature of the up coming generation wont do much to fix THAT problem...
I believe the GP was referring to cores when stating "CPU"... if you actually bothered to read the entirety of their post you would have seen that they cited the 360 and several of it's games as examples of how modern multi-core CPUs _DO_ allow you multi-task/do things while loading.
it's the reason why the 360 can do those things... and the Xbox 1 did not.