Actually I think he's revering to Benheck's recent one handed controller mod for the Xbox 360. IIRC it was built for a war vet who lost one of their arms while serving. It's a really interesting design.
That's interesting. Most places I've worked (in the US) had a 30-90 day "probation" period at the start of your time there meaning the employer or employee could terminate the relationship for any reason what-so-ever before the contract kicked in. The idea is it gives both parties the time needed to feel comfortable with the decision and not worry about legal ramifications if they change their mind.
Except that the PS3 Linux environment has hardware acceleration disabled. Early attempts at homebrew software have not been all that great. The SNES emulator that ran near perfect on it's first version on the Xbox 1 is horribly slow, had no audio and crashes constantly in PS3 Linux.
A castrated Linux environment isn't exactly the best development platform. Not to mention that if you developed your homebrew game there you would have to go through the effort of porting it to the REAL PS3 OS if you ever wanted to really bring it to market.
Aside from the novelty of running something you wrote yourself on the PS3 there really isn't much use for PS3 Linux game development. You'd be better off using XNA to get a decent Windows game, spending the $100 to make sure it compiles well on the 360 and then pursue marketing it further on either one of those platforms.
Dual format player might just win the war... just like dual format burners won the war between DVD-R and DVD+R. I do agree that there's a higher probability of Internet distribution taking precedence over either format... that's more of a DVD-A vs. SACD. vs MP3 model. The big differences being that movies don't benefit from portability the same way music does.
I was at Gamestop last night picking up a new 360 title and noticed "Big Bumpin" (a $4 Burger King game) for $7.99 USED.
I find that most of the time I can get a game NEW at Best Buy for less then what EB/GS charge for a recently released Used title.
FWIW I get most of my games at Walmart, and that's only because they're the only store that sells new games within a 20 mile radius of my house. And the only used retailers are pawn shops that like to charge $10 for a scratched to crap with no case PS1 game.
That's BS, of course there's a need for that. Most HDTV sets, the true 1080 ones, comes with at least 2 HDMI ports, but only one component entry.
HDMI will give you the best quality at 1080p, unless you buy ungodly priced component cables with enough bandwidth from the connectors to the cable.
HDMI delivering the best quality is debatable. Having delivered the Pepsi Challenge to close to 50 or so people who've visited my home theater over the last year I haven't found a single solitary person who could tell the difference. besides DLPs are the only true digital display format available today (LCDs and Plasmas are still technically analog) and most scaler chips in TVs are analog as well meaning the whole keeping the signal digital is crap, not to mention decoding DRM adds a few milliseconds to the signal processing which is bad for any hardcore gaming. And if you really need more inputs buy a switcher. It will probably cost less then the costs added to the console for an HDMI out, not to mention you can use it for other things as well.
Yes, theoretically. Now, we don't even know if the games can be output at true 1080p on the 360. This information seems very hard to get.
Is the 1080p games from XB360 true 1080p, or just 720p scaled up to 1080p ?
Have you tried... reading the box? most will have the natively supported resolutions printed right on it. Even still does it matter? They all support at least 720p and the ones that don't can scale (and scale very well) to whatever you want. I suppose it matters on the PS3 but not on the 360.
Like saying 1080p will add nothing to the consumer experience. Accept it or not, but HDMI seems to have won the connectors' war. Unless the PC HD connectors (UDI, DisplayPort) can make a come back, but I highly doubt it, given who is behind HDMI (mainly HDTV display makers).
1080p doesn't add much to the consumer experience in gaming... actually I'd argue that on a console it can actually take away from it... significantly. Why? Because it's being used as a marketing buzzword. If a game has trouble rendering in 1080p they drop FSAA, drop the poly count on the 3D models, go with lower resolutions textures, drop the FPS, etc etc etc. IMO those do a whole lot more for the image quality then 1080p over 720p. All things equal of course I'd prefer 1080p over 720p but when you're pushing these consoles to their limits... you can rarely get 1080p without something else suffering significantly for it.
First time I heard any of that. Every time I discussed with XB360 owners, it was the other way around : the current size of XB360 HDD is not enough, and that's on PS3 you can swap drives in a few seconds, not on XB360. Do you have a source for what you're saying ?
I'd appreciate some more space or the ability to use my own drive, but at the same time I've never hit the limit of my drive, nor do I know anyone who has. I've currently got about 5 or 6 demos, 10 or so game trailers, 20 or so XBLA games, an HD movie, install files for the FFXI beta as well as game saves and updates for over 50 titles. AFAIK there are only 2 games that install data on the HDD on the Xbox 360 and quite a few PS3 titles that do already to keep loading times at a reasonable speed. The PS3 has a screw to remove a door then the drive can be pulled out and there are 4 more screws to remove the drive from the caddy (which you'll need to do because you can't get extra caddys), if you stand it vertically then you have to put the console back horizontally to get the drive out (and if you're storing it vertically it's probably because you don't have the space for that) the 360's HDD can be removed with the push of 1 button, it has no screws or extra parts and requires no tools at all. You don't need a reference link there at some 10 million people that own them.. ask any one of them. But just incase you still need instruction:
Obviously if it takes more bandwidth and more storage space to pirate an HD movie then it does to pirate a Book, those things aren't what is causing people to pirate movies more then books. I think you'd be better off looking at the ratio of cost per hours of enjoyment rather then bandwidth and storage space.
If I buy a book it will take me anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks if I spend an hour or two daily reading. A movie will always take 1 night... that's it
While I've read some stinkers nearly every book I've read has warranted at least one re-read, meaning I can take that couple of days to couple of weeks and multiply it by 2 or 3 times. Movies... it's quite rare that I'll watch one more then once. Classics sure, but last weeks "blockbuster" nevermind. Not only that but I can pass a good book on to my children and they can get enjoyment out of it as well... not only would I question how much enjoyment my future children would get out of today's movies I also question if today's devices will still be around at that point (see: vinyl, 8-track, etc.).
Now lets look at pricing. First editions and hard-bounds are released first, they cost more but the packaging is higher quality and they cater to the people who really want that info as soon as possible. They can cost anywhere from $20-$30. Once the initial release excitement has died down they drop to about half the price and are re-released in a paperback, then years later they'll drop again by about half where there are newer books garnering attention from the same would-be crowd. Books can also be borrowed for free from the library. Movie's equivalent to a first edition is the Theater experience. The goer gets to view the film once and they get no physical object in return for this (save maybe a receipt/stub) it costs about $7-$10 per person per view. for a couple of hours of entertainment. Months later the price doubles as it's released in a lower quality DVD format (or triples and is released in an equal quality HD format)... months later depending on the popularity of the movie the price either goes up again with the release of a Special Edition or it will drop and eventually disappear from store shelves. Borrowing from a rental place has a price as well.
Basically the problem is 2 fold
1. The entertainment provided is short lived and includes continuously less and less artistic merit.
2. The price for this lower quality entertainment is exponentially higher then that of higher quality entertainment. Also the price gets driven up as high as it possibly can before it just drops out completely.
People will pay what they feel a product is worth, IMO if people are pirating your works it's probably because they don't feel it's worth as much as you're asking for it. Maybe a Better scenario would be to keep the theater experience where it is, but release HD Special editions at the same time for $20-$30. After the first year or so drop the Special Edition and release a cheaper version for half the price, after another year halve it again. This of course only works if the quality of content starts increasing.
I was the same as you, I did actually like the Arcade version. I felt it fit well between the MK and SF franchises. Certainly not the best 2D fighter but it was fun to play when I got bored with some of the other machines at th Arcade. I bought the Playstation version when it came out and returned it the next day, it was utter garbage, particularly the graphics.
You are certainly correct about the ostentatious, they do make up a relevant portion of Mac users. Though I do believe that the pretentious are attracted to that platform because of it's supposed superiority and it's style falls in line with that. Superior looks becomes another bullet on the long list of why they think they're better then everyone else. Not to mention it's distinctive look makes it easier to boast while toting it in public.
Do macs make you pretentious or are pretentious people naturally attracted to macs? It's not hard to see why a pretentious person would choose a mac with the slick looks and superiority stereotype delivered by the ID and marketing departments.
I'm not saying all mac owners are pretentious, just the vocal abrasive minority... which doesn't help the stereotype any.
I used Red Steel as an example because it has sword fighting in it, and aside from Zelda it's AFAIK the only game with sword fighting. Zelda's sword fighting isn't much better it might register more reliably but basically you just wiggle the remote instead of pushing a button, which IMO doesn't really add much "fun" to the game. At least in Red Steel the on screen actions map more realistically to your movements (albeit poorly). If you'd rather use a "good" title go putt or box in Wii sports... neither are much better.
WoW on a Wii would be more fun, because you could actually cast spells or slash with a sword by actually doing it. Instead of hunting around for silly keys to click - and you'd still have a ribbon bar on the bottom.
Good luck reading any text... or navigating any kind of menus. 720x480 isn't exactly the best resolution for PC ports, and that's assuming you have an HDTV/EDTV... else you're watching more like 640x240. Go use the webbrowser and once the cool factor of a browser on a console wears off you'll realize that scrolling horizontally on even the most scarce websites sucks.
As cool as really slashing your sword around might seem it gets repetitive and aggravation inducing after a while (I own one, I almost through my Red Steel disc through a wall after about 3 hours of the game not properly recognizing my inputs). Not exactly something I'd sign up to play hours and hours and hours of daily like most WoW players.
Honestly you'd be better off with it on the 360 or PS3... hard drive space for expansions, keyboard support for text entry, and the resolution support to drive either a nice PC monitor or HDTV all the way up to 1920x1080. You might not be hacking and slashing but your eyes and arms will thank you greatly.
Yup, I buy physically imported media all the time. Usually the B&M stores will rip you off on truly foreign releases but I've had no problems importing music and movies to the US from amazon.??? My last two purchases were the complete DVD collection of SPACED from Amazon.co.uk and the complete DVD collection of Clone High from Amazon.ca. All said and done I only paid about $25 US after shipping and taxes for the collection of both seasons of spaced + the special where the average eBay seller was hocking the individual titles for about $60 a pop (if you could even find one for sale)
Of course if you're going to import movies you need to make sure your DVD player is equipped to handle alternate regions.
City planning does factor into it. I've lived in the woods of NH most of my life I wasn't all that active in high school and was over weight by national standards despite being about average for my area. I went to college in a medium sized city in NY and within the first year I had dropped 15 lbs, I was eating substantially worse too. Basically I walked to class from my apartment, when I went out with friends we'd walk to the downtown area to get food or entertainment.
I lost a full 30lbs by the time I graduated.
After I joined the working world I've put on about 40lbs in under 3 years. I have a desk job and even though I'm watching what I eat I rarely have time for exercise after my work days (despite the fact that I spend just as much time working now as I did studying in school) mostly due to the large amount of time spent driving to and from work, to and from the store, etc. A Typical night I'll have just enough time to get some dinner, spend some time with my SO and go to bed. Weekends I have time to exercise, but it's not enough.
At school walking instead of driving wasn't so much a choice as it was a requirement, it was impossible to find a parking spot anywhere and things were close enough that even if you did you'd probably be doing just as much walking anyway. In a rural area I don't have a choice, it's 15 miles to anywhere, the weather is harsh, and the roadways aren't even designed accommodate pedestrians or cyclists.
I exercise when I have the time and I eat better now so on a whole my lifestyle choices have changed for the better, the most drastic change is my location, and that has had the biggest impact on my health.
My guess is you either:
A. play a lot of MMOs
B. play a lot of less popular/indy titles or
C. haven't been paying enough attention to the console market to notice all the ports.
it sounds like it really don't have any similarities to Chu Chu Rocket other then it's name... though I would love it if Sega re-released Chu Chu Rocket for the Xbox Live arcade. I still play my Dreamcast and that's one of my favorite titles, along with Space Channel 5, which is probably more like Boom Boom Rocket since they're both rhythm games.
That's not exactly true... The GDRom had a small inner ring that was formatted like a CD (go look on the bottom of a real DC disc if you've got one). To my understanding all games booted up in the CD section which sometimes would include bonus content you could load on your PC like wallpapers and screen savers etc. Once the console initialized into this section it pass an instruction for the disc to change over into the GD formatted section of the disc to play games.
basically there wasn't any encryption, the copy protection was in the proprietary formatting, but booting all games from a CD formatted section of the disc was it's Achilles' heal. Basically hackers just stripped the CD based boot sector raw and cut out the last bit before it switched over to the GD formatting... hence the famed "Utopia Boot Disc" that early bootlegs required. After a while they simply started dumping the boot disc right at the beginning of the boot legs which allowed pirate kiddies the ability to just burn a single disc and throw it in their unmoded console. GDRoms can't even be read in a PC, and though they're based loosely on the CD format they could only be ripped by a Dreamcast with a special cable and some homebrew software, I've never done it but I've heard the process can take hours per disc due to the fact that the interface is basically just RS232.
If you need even further proof that Sega didn't condone these methods, Dreamcast V2.0s started showing up around February 2001 in Japan that somehow blocked the widely used boot code from functioning. Being that they didn't roll out the updated console until late in it's manufacturing life those units are pretty rare, and AFAIK they never even released any in the US (mostly Japan and a few other areas).
Hitman: Bloodmoney does a really good job of this. Go play the mission called "A Murder of Crows" it takes place across several busy city blocks in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, literally wall to wall people, not just in the streets but you can enter most of the buildings and find them filled with people as well.
If you have enough ammo you can kill every last person in that level, none of them respawn and their bodies lie on the ground until you exit the level. You can even pick them up and move them around if you want. I believe there are even a few videos floating around youtube of someone running around the corpse littered streets after they'd wiped everyone out if you'd rather not waste the time trying it out for yourself. I can't speak for the other versions but I know it works on the Xbox 360 version, as that's where I did it.
And I'm glad other people are starting to question FF13s exlusivity, which I think is in danger of completely disappearing. I still maintain that Square has probably had an 360 version in the works, all along, just in case the PS3 tanks.
I really do hope it comes to the 360, it's one of the few titles that draw me to the Playstation brand. If they did make the jump to the Xbox 360 exclusively, or even time limited exclusivity it would be earth shattering to the industry. The 360 would start selling like crazy in Japan and many many other Japanese developers would follow suit; Sony would be reduced to about what Sega was during the Saturn era.
They will ship a few "cool" games this year. They mainly still only have their core franchizes however. Nothing much on the lines of new ones. My guess is that if they can get FFXIII (yes, we really are up to 13) out relatively soon they should see a nice boost in sales, combine that with other things like Devil May Cry, Dynasty Warriors, etc etc, and they might stil lhave a shot.
I agree that FFXIII would deliver the much needed boost however isn't that game more of a 2008 release? considering FFXII was just recently released XIII probably wont be out for at least another year, probably even longer considering it's a generation jump. And then comes the question if it would still be a PS3 exclusive if the sales haven't improved enough by that point. Devil May Cry would certainly help but that's another one rumored to be going cross platform, Capcom is making kissy faces with MS right now after the success of Dead Rising and the good response so far of Lost Planet (which is based on the same engine and DMC4 BTW). Dynasty Warriors is a full fledged cross platform title now, and has already enjoyed 2 released on the 360. Their best bets are MGS4 and Tekken6, but even those probably wont see light until about November and it's doubtful if even those titles could move a $600 console without a solid library to back them up.
In short you will buy your PS3 this year if a few of the big names hit.
Maybe, I don't care about "big names" so much as good games, they don't have to be a well known franchise. Condemned and Dead Rising are some of my favorite titles on the Xbox 360 so far and neither is part of any franchise. Basically I need games that will get me excited at the prospect of playing them. And with the price of the console there would need to be at least 5 or 6 of those titles before I would invest.
Then when you compare games like Madden (the number one selling game), and others for all your console, you will more than likely see the PS3 is a better game. Thus you will probably buy the PS3 versions of cross platform games and then the Sony dominance continues again.
That seems to be a popular "promise" but so far it hasn't really panned out. While I don't care for the Madden series I am a big Tony Hawk fan and the latest offering of that franchise is markedly superior on the Xbox 360 when compared to the PS3 version. Having played both the 360 simply looks better and has a really nice online mode, while the PS3 version has none. All things equal I'd still prefer the 360 version because I find the controller much more comfortable and I enjoy the achievement system as I mentioned earlier.
I've never like the Sony controllers, I find they can cramp my hand after long gaming sessions, I was excited when I saw the new boomerang design as it looked a whole lot more comfortable then the previous controllers and was quite disappointed when they went back to the old shape (though I'm probably in the minority in that regard). Similarly I was quite disappointed when Sony decided to no longer support the "entitlement" system they had announced as the achievement system on the 360 has grown to be one of my favorite features of that console.
The good news for you is that you may be able to get your PS3 cheaper than $500. My prediction is that by Q4 of this year they will be in the low $400 range. Sony just needs to finish the software emulation of the PS2 and PS1, then they can remove those chips from the PS3, thus being able to lower the price.
That would be a real treat, BC doesn't really matter to me all that much considering I have quite a collection of past and present consoles, however rendering old games in HD is quite nice and having that feature on the 360 has allowed me to enjoy several of my favorite older Xbox titles (though there are a few more that I wish they would support). That would be a big plus if the PS3 added that feature as I would much like to replay some of my favorite PS2 titles again but in HD. This, however, seems quite a ways off.
The other good news is that you will be able to watch BlueRay movies with the other six to ten million other people that will have a Blue Ray player.
Unfortunately this is a negative for me. I don't like either "next gen" disc format as I'm annoyed with the large amounts of DRM that's been implemented.
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Actually I think he's revering to Benheck's recent one handed controller mod for the Xbox 360. IIRC it was built for a war vet who lost one of their arms while serving. It's a really interesting design.
That's interesting. Most places I've worked (in the US) had a 30-90 day "probation" period at the start of your time there meaning the employer or employee could terminate the relationship for any reason what-so-ever before the contract kicked in. The idea is it gives both parties the time needed to feel comfortable with the decision and not worry about legal ramifications if they change their mind.
Except that the PS3 Linux environment has hardware acceleration disabled. Early attempts at homebrew software have not been all that great. The SNES emulator that ran near perfect on it's first version on the Xbox 1 is horribly slow, had no audio and crashes constantly in PS3 Linux.
A castrated Linux environment isn't exactly the best development platform. Not to mention that if you developed your homebrew game there you would have to go through the effort of porting it to the REAL PS3 OS if you ever wanted to really bring it to market.
Aside from the novelty of running something you wrote yourself on the PS3 there really isn't much use for PS3 Linux game development. You'd be better off using XNA to get a decent Windows game, spending the $100 to make sure it compiles well on the 360 and then pursue marketing it further on either one of those platforms.
Dual format player might just win the war... just like dual format burners won the war between DVD-R and DVD+R. I do agree that there's a higher probability of Internet distribution taking precedence over either format... that's more of a DVD-A vs. SACD. vs MP3 model. The big differences being that movies don't benefit from portability the same way music does.
I was at Gamestop last night picking up a new 360 title and noticed "Big Bumpin" (a $4 Burger King game) for $7.99 USED.
I find that most of the time I can get a game NEW at Best Buy for less then what EB/GS charge for a recently released Used title.
FWIW I get most of my games at Walmart, and that's only because they're the only store that sells new games within a 20 mile radius of my house. And the only used retailers are pawn shops that like to charge $10 for a scratched to crap with no case PS1 game.
maybe the fixed it after GS posted their story?
HDMI delivering the best quality is debatable. Having delivered the Pepsi Challenge to close to 50 or so people who've visited my home theater over the last year I haven't found a single solitary person who could tell the difference. besides DLPs are the only true digital display format available today (LCDs and Plasmas are still technically analog) and most scaler chips in TVs are analog as well meaning the whole keeping the signal digital is crap, not to mention decoding DRM adds a few milliseconds to the signal processing which is bad for any hardcore gaming. And if you really need more inputs buy a switcher. It will probably cost less then the costs added to the console for an HDMI out, not to mention you can use it for other things as well.
Have you tried... reading the box? most will have the natively supported resolutions printed right on it. Even still does it matter? They all support at least 720p and the ones that don't can scale (and scale very well) to whatever you want. I suppose it matters on the PS3 but not on the 360.
1080p doesn't add much to the consumer experience in gaming... actually I'd argue that on a console it can actually take away from it... significantly. Why? Because it's being used as a marketing buzzword. If a game has trouble rendering in 1080p they drop FSAA, drop the poly count on the 3D models, go with lower resolutions textures, drop the FPS, etc etc etc. IMO those do a whole lot more for the image quality then 1080p over 720p. All things equal of course I'd prefer 1080p over 720p but when you're pushing these consoles to their limits... you can rarely get 1080p without something else suffering significantly for it.
I'd appreciate some more space or the ability to use my own drive, but at the same time I've never hit the limit of my drive, nor do I know anyone who has. I've currently got about 5 or 6 demos, 10 or so game trailers, 20 or so XBLA games, an HD movie, install files for the FFXI beta as well as game saves and updates for over 50 titles. AFAIK there are only 2 games that install data on the HDD on the Xbox 360 and quite a few PS3 titles that do already to keep loading times at a reasonable speed. The PS3 has a screw to remove a door then the drive can be pulled out and there are 4 more screws to remove the drive from the caddy (which you'll need to do because you can't get extra caddys), if you stand it vertically then you have to put the console back horizontally to get the drive out (and if you're storing it vertically it's probably because you don't have the space for that) the 360's HDD can be removed with the push of 1 button, it has no screws or extra parts and requires no tools at all. You don't need a reference link there at some 10 million people that own them.. ask any one of them. But just incase you still need instruction:
Obviously if it takes more bandwidth and more storage space to pirate an HD movie then it does to pirate a Book, those things aren't what is causing people to pirate movies more then books. I think you'd be better off looking at the ratio of cost per hours of enjoyment rather then bandwidth and storage space.
If I buy a book it will take me anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks if I spend an hour or two daily reading. A movie will always take 1 night... that's it
While I've read some stinkers nearly every book I've read has warranted at least one re-read, meaning I can take that couple of days to couple of weeks and multiply it by 2 or 3 times. Movies... it's quite rare that I'll watch one more then once. Classics sure, but last weeks "blockbuster" nevermind. Not only that but I can pass a good book on to my children and they can get enjoyment out of it as well... not only would I question how much enjoyment my future children would get out of today's movies I also question if today's devices will still be around at that point (see: vinyl, 8-track, etc.).
Now lets look at pricing. First editions and hard-bounds are released first, they cost more but the packaging is higher quality and they cater to the people who really want that info as soon as possible. They can cost anywhere from $20-$30. Once the initial release excitement has died down they drop to about half the price and are re-released in a paperback, then years later they'll drop again by about half where there are newer books garnering attention from the same would-be crowd. Books can also be borrowed for free from the library. Movie's equivalent to a first edition is the Theater experience. The goer gets to view the film once and they get no physical object in return for this (save maybe a receipt/stub) it costs about $7-$10 per person per view. for a couple of hours of entertainment. Months later the price doubles as it's released in a lower quality DVD format (or triples and is released in an equal quality HD format)... months later depending on the popularity of the movie the price either goes up again with the release of a Special Edition or it will drop and eventually disappear from store shelves. Borrowing from a rental place has a price as well.
Basically the problem is 2 fold
1. The entertainment provided is short lived and includes continuously less and less artistic merit.
2. The price for this lower quality entertainment is exponentially higher then that of higher quality entertainment. Also the price gets driven up as high as it possibly can before it just drops out completely.
People will pay what they feel a product is worth, IMO if people are pirating your works it's probably because they don't feel it's worth as much as you're asking for it. Maybe a Better scenario would be to keep the theater experience where it is, but release HD Special editions at the same time for $20-$30. After the first year or so drop the Special Edition and release a cheaper version for half the price, after another year halve it again. This of course only works if the quality of content starts increasing.
I was the same as you, I did actually like the Arcade version. I felt it fit well between the MK and SF franchises. Certainly not the best 2D fighter but it was fun to play when I got bored with some of the other machines at th Arcade. I bought the Playstation version when it came out and returned it the next day, it was utter garbage, particularly the graphics.
You are certainly correct about the ostentatious, they do make up a relevant portion of Mac users. Though I do believe that the pretentious are attracted to that platform because of it's supposed superiority and it's style falls in line with that. Superior looks becomes another bullet on the long list of why they think they're better then everyone else. Not to mention it's distinctive look makes it easier to boast while toting it in public.
Do macs make you pretentious or are pretentious people naturally attracted to macs? It's not hard to see why a pretentious person would choose a mac with the slick looks and superiority stereotype delivered by the ID and marketing departments.
I'm not saying all mac owners are pretentious, just the vocal abrasive minority... which doesn't help the stereotype any.
I used Red Steel as an example because it has sword fighting in it, and aside from Zelda it's AFAIK the only game with sword fighting. Zelda's sword fighting isn't much better it might register more reliably but basically you just wiggle the remote instead of pushing a button, which IMO doesn't really add much "fun" to the game. At least in Red Steel the on screen actions map more realistically to your movements (albeit poorly). If you'd rather use a "good" title go putt or box in Wii sports... neither are much better.
As cool as really slashing your sword around might seem it gets repetitive and aggravation inducing after a while (I own one, I almost through my Red Steel disc through a wall after about 3 hours of the game not properly recognizing my inputs). Not exactly something I'd sign up to play hours and hours and hours of daily like most WoW players.
Honestly you'd be better off with it on the 360 or PS3... hard drive space for expansions, keyboard support for text entry, and the resolution support to drive either a nice PC monitor or HDTV all the way up to 1920x1080. You might not be hacking and slashing but your eyes and arms will thank you greatly.
Really? Since when? AFAIK the engine is labeled "3" while the game is labeled "2007"
For instance Gears of War runs on the Unreal 3 engine, Unreal Tournament 2007 will also run on the Unreal 3 engine.
Yup, I buy physically imported media all the time. Usually the B&M stores will rip you off on truly foreign releases but I've had no problems importing music and movies to the US from amazon.??? My last two purchases were the complete DVD collection of SPACED from Amazon.co.uk and the complete DVD collection of Clone High from Amazon.ca. All said and done I only paid about $25 US after shipping and taxes for the collection of both seasons of spaced + the special where the average eBay seller was hocking the individual titles for about $60 a pop (if you could even find one for sale)
Of course if you're going to import movies you need to make sure your DVD player is equipped to handle alternate regions.
pfff, you've obviously never solved the .
City planning does factor into it. I've lived in the woods of NH most of my life I wasn't all that active in high school and was over weight by national standards despite being about average for my area. I went to college in a medium sized city in NY and within the first year I had dropped 15 lbs, I was eating substantially worse too. Basically I walked to class from my apartment, when I went out with friends we'd walk to the downtown area to get food or entertainment.
I lost a full 30lbs by the time I graduated.
After I joined the working world I've put on about 40lbs in under 3 years. I have a desk job and even though I'm watching what I eat I rarely have time for exercise after my work days (despite the fact that I spend just as much time working now as I did studying in school) mostly due to the large amount of time spent driving to and from work, to and from the store, etc. A Typical night I'll have just enough time to get some dinner, spend some time with my SO and go to bed. Weekends I have time to exercise, but it's not enough.
At school walking instead of driving wasn't so much a choice as it was a requirement, it was impossible to find a parking spot anywhere and things were close enough that even if you did you'd probably be doing just as much walking anyway. In a rural area I don't have a choice, it's 15 miles to anywhere, the weather is harsh, and the roadways aren't even designed accommodate pedestrians or cyclists.
I exercise when I have the time and I eat better now so on a whole my lifestyle choices have changed for the better, the most drastic change is my location, and that has had the biggest impact on my health.
what were the last 10 games you've played?
My guess is you either:
A. play a lot of MMOs
B. play a lot of less popular/indy titles or
C. haven't been paying enough attention to the console market to notice all the ports.
it sounds like it really don't have any similarities to Chu Chu Rocket other then it's name... though I would love it if Sega re-released Chu Chu Rocket for the Xbox Live arcade. I still play my Dreamcast and that's one of my favorite titles, along with Space Channel 5, which is probably more like Boom Boom Rocket since they're both rhythm games.
That's not exactly true... The GDRom had a small inner ring that was formatted like a CD (go look on the bottom of a real DC disc if you've got one). To my understanding all games booted up in the CD section which sometimes would include bonus content you could load on your PC like wallpapers and screen savers etc. Once the console initialized into this section it pass an instruction for the disc to change over into the GD formatted section of the disc to play games.
basically there wasn't any encryption, the copy protection was in the proprietary formatting, but booting all games from a CD formatted section of the disc was it's Achilles' heal. Basically hackers just stripped the CD based boot sector raw and cut out the last bit before it switched over to the GD formatting... hence the famed "Utopia Boot Disc" that early bootlegs required. After a while they simply started dumping the boot disc right at the beginning of the boot legs which allowed pirate kiddies the ability to just burn a single disc and throw it in their unmoded console. GDRoms can't even be read in a PC, and though they're based loosely on the CD format they could only be ripped by a Dreamcast with a special cable and some homebrew software, I've never done it but I've heard the process can take hours per disc due to the fact that the interface is basically just RS232.
If you need even further proof that Sega didn't condone these methods, Dreamcast V2.0s started showing up around February 2001 in Japan that somehow blocked the widely used boot code from functioning. Being that they didn't roll out the updated console until late in it's manufacturing life those units are pretty rare, and AFAIK they never even released any in the US (mostly Japan and a few other areas).
here's the link
Hitman: Bloodmoney does a really good job of this. Go play the mission called "A Murder of Crows" it takes place across several busy city blocks in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, literally wall to wall people, not just in the streets but you can enter most of the buildings and find them filled with people as well.
If you have enough ammo you can kill every last person in that level, none of them respawn and their bodies lie on the ground until you exit the level. You can even pick them up and move them around if you want. I believe there are even a few videos floating around youtube of someone running around the corpse littered streets after they'd wiped everyone out if you'd rather not waste the time trying it out for yourself. I can't speak for the other versions but I know it works on the Xbox 360 version, as that's where I did it.
I've never like the Sony controllers, I find they can cramp my hand after long gaming sessions, I was excited when I saw the new boomerang design as it looked a whole lot more comfortable then the previous controllers and was quite disappointed when they went back to the old shape (though I'm probably in the minority in that regard). Similarly I was quite disappointed when Sony decided to no longer support the "entitlement" system they had announced as the achievement system on the 360 has grown to be one of my favorite features of that console. That would be a real treat, BC doesn't really matter to me all that much considering I have quite a collection of past and present consoles, however rendering old games in HD is quite nice and having that feature on the 360 has allowed me to enjoy several of my favorite older Xbox titles (though there are a few more that I wish they would support). That would be a big plus if the PS3 added that feature as I would much like to replay some of my favorite PS2 titles again but in HD. This, however, seems quite a ways off. Unfortunately this is a negative for me. I don't like either "next gen" disc format as I'm annoyed with the large amounts of DRM that's been implemented.