I'd also like to point out that virtually every innovative console game (and boring imitator) since the NES 20 years ago has used basically the same controller design.
And I'd like to point out that every controller design from Nintendo since the NES(well before the GC) has had an impact on that same controller we've been using. Cross D-pad, shoulder buttons, analog sticks, canned force feedback are all console precendents set by Nintendo.
I think you missed my point. I wasn't saying that BitTorrent is just another iteration of file sharing like FTP; it isn't. You're right. It is a solid protocol that allows for much more dissemination of bits than FTP. My argument was against the description of BitTorrent as a "killer app" that has just recently made broadband valuable for many people.
The point I made was that there have been numerous popular file sharing applications out there before BitTorrent that has made broadband a must have(i.e. killer apps). Many people have already gotten broadband for file sharing on FTP, Morpheous, Napster, and the like. I was pointing out was that just because BitTorrent needs a lot of bandwidth to become successful (functional not being synomous with successful) doesn't mean that it's being adopting in mass like a killer app.
The irony is that until BitTorrent, broadband was having a hell of a time getting people to sign up--because, after all, what would they need it for? And now that there's actually a "killer app," people are signing up so fast and using so much that it's causing a "backslash" (heh heh). Either feast or famine, nothing in-between.
Come on now, there has been plenty of bandwidth sucking software apps out there for quite some time now. FTP(among other types of servers) servers hosting large files have been out there forever. Putting that aside, there have been many P2P file sharing apps(Napster,Morpheous,BearShare,DC,etc...) out there for years that predate BitTorrent. And for about the same number of years, Broadband providers have been successfully advertising about the advantages of broadband for downloading music and movies(even before there were legal services like iTunes).
BitTorrent hasn't done anything for selling broadband outside of what has already been done. In fact, there is data out there suggesting that broadband growth is, at least in the US, leveling off. If you look for the data out there, price and lack of neccessity(e.g. only need internet service for email) seem to be the sticking issues for many people not adopting broadband. The significance of BitTorrent regarding bandwidth usage is that requires a large chain of people downloading and uploading at the same time, often for hours or even days depending on the file. It's not that a ton of people are adopting the program in mass. It's that the protocol requires a lot of bandwidth for it to be successful.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that only an option if you have a v1.0-1.5 XBox? I bought a new retail XBox(v 1.6) and from all the sources I've heard you're pretty much stuck with having to get a modchip if you want to mod it.
Better yet, if cost isn't much of an issue, buy an original XBox and modify it(or buy it premodded if soldering scares you). For $150(retail XBox) + $50(a nice modchip) + $100 (hard drive upgrade) = $300 you can get a gaming console that can do more than the XBox360. Granted it's not as pretty as an XBox360 in a number of ways, but the stuff you can do with it makes up for that. XBox Media Center(which will play almost any computer video/audio/picture format) + emulation of almost any popular old video game console turns the XBox into a media box that really has no rival out there.
Back to the topic, people have already figured out how to stream non-supported video formats(e.g. DivX,XviD,etc.) to the XBox360. I guess this is another extension of that. Outside the ass backwards way to set it up, it also seems like lag would be an issue as well. Of course, that's just my intial speculation. To me, until some figures out how to get unsigned code on the 360 it's just not worth the effort to do stuff like this when there's cheaper(and better) alternatives out there.
Could it be that the type of people who like to enjoy street racing enjoy video games about the same thing? Could it be that people can be influenced by something as trivial as a video game because they don't always think rationally about the impact of their actions in real life. Could it be that even though the prior proposition is most likely true(in some form) that statistically it's irrelevant because the vast majority of people who play "Need for Speed" don't go out and street race because of the inherent dangers involved? Or could be that almost anything in the human experience can influence a person to do something that might lead to a tragic accident, and just because that's true, it says nothing about whether that influence is a good or bad thing?
Implemented? Using an software exploit(e.g. the PS2 independance exploit) or mod chip, you can run homebrew software that lets you format a new hard disc, install new partitions for each game, and run the partitions off the hard drive. It's not flawless, there's like a 70% compatibility for my version of HD Loader that uses a softmod, but it runs a lot of popular games. I have almost my entire collection on a 320 GB disc. It's very nice, especially since the DVD-ROM drive is about busted.
You can use almost(there's a compatibility list online somewhere) any IDE hard drive with the network adapter. Even the Sony HD is a Maxtor 40GB drive with special firmware or something that allows to be used by the PS2 browser. I don't know what the average life of a internal IDE hard drive is but I say 20 years isn't unreasonable. It's certainly a lot longer than the POS optical drives they put in PS2. The first one I got direct from Sony didn't work when I got it. The second one crapped out in a couple of years. And the one I have now, it's drive has about had it.
Check out ps2hd.com. There are various software exploits out there that can make use of the PS2 HD for more than just memory card backups and FF XI cache data. You can load up emulators, media playing programs, and images of PS2 games with the hard drive.
I thought this story covered the term but apparently it doesn't. Anyway, the medical term for Henry's condition is called anterograde amnesia. And if it hasn't already been mentioned here, it's also the same ailment that the protagonist Leonard has in the movie Memento. And if you liked that movie I reccommend reading the short story it was based on. It's an excellent piece of prose.
Is this the best you can do? How is this even a story about gaming? This is something I expect to read on Fark, or some other website's dumb story of day section, not on the front page of Slashdot. I guess you can't expect much from stories posted @ 3 a.m. EST.
*ahem* read the article again. It WAS considered...
Other notable entries in the driving genre this year include Gran Turismo 4, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Wipeout Pure.
I too found it strange that GT4 didn't make the list. But I have yet to play it or its contemporaries so I can't say whether or not the other games deserve the title more or not.
Pressure sensitive buttons can be useful. It's just that most games out there don't even try to do anything with them. Examples good use: Any decent racing game(that should be a no brainer) and Metal Gear Solid 2/3. In the game, when you have a weapon equiped, you press down the fire button to aim the weapon. Releasing the button makes you fire the weapon. If you take aim and decide not to fire, you can slowly let off the button and put down weapon without firing.
Excuse me, how is this exactly flamebait? I am making a point about the perception what the people at MS have regarding their competition. If this is flamebait, who is it am I'm trying to get to flame me? People whom I angered by suggesting that Nintendo has come up with a novel control idea? People whom I angered by suggesting modern controllers are bit unapproachable by some gamers? Please, oh moderation god, answer me. Tell me that it wasn't just some idiot out there with mod points who sought fit to classify me as a Nintendo fanboy just because I think Nintendo's new controller is a cool idea.
Ahem, again with the tags properly closed...my apologies.
Mr. Allard misses the point to broading the video game market. They ask him:
Looking at the Revolution, with its controller and game download service, how important is technology like that for growing the market, or is there still room for growth with conventional games?
He then starts talking about the cost of games. As if the cost was the thing preventing more people from picking up the newest console and start gaming. Granted, it some way it does impede some people, but most likely if they like gaming they have a older generation console and play games on that. He then throws out this gem:
And what we haven't done in the gaming industry is that we haven't brought advertising, sponsorship and product placement to bear in a way that could broaden the audience. Now, I don't think anyone in the world - except maybe people who work in advertising - would stand up and say: "I love advertising, I want more of it!" But the flipside of it is that I like the price of the internet, I like the price of TV which comes as a result of advertising. I like the fact I can buy your magazine on the store shelf and it doesn't cost me $27
Yes, it isn't like you have to pay for an ISP or have to pay for cable to get more than 7 channels. And lets just ignore the fact that they already do product advertisement in some sports games, which from what I can tell hasn't lower the cost for games at all. Putting that all aside, let's look at the gaming market..
It consists mostly of males ranging from somewhere around 8 to 40. And a lot of the older ones have grew up playing video games for a while. The point Mr. Allard is missing with Nintendo's controller is accessability. TV, movies, and the Internet don't have a wider audience because of advertising(and thus a cheaper entry fee). They have a broader audience because it's very easy to stare at screen
or read a web browser and use a mouse.
Looking at the accessability for video games it's easy to see why they're only enticing to those who've grown up with them(or young enough that it's much easier to pick up). Now a days, most games make use of 2 direction pads/sticks and I would say around 8 actions buttons. For someone who hasn't grown up playing video games, that's a lot to deal with if you want to start playing video games.
If Nintendo plays this right with its more intuitative controller and its download service of older, simplier games, I think they might just be able to find that broader gaming market that won't be won by advertising.
Mr. Allard misses the point to broading the video game market. They ask him:
Looking at the Revolution, with its controller and game download service, how important is technology like that for growing the market, or is there still room for growth with conventional games?
He then starts talking about the cost of games. As if the cost was the thing preventing more people from picking up the newest console and start gaming. Granted, it some way it does impede some people, but most likely if they like gaming they have a older generation console and play games on that. He then throws out this gem:
And what we haven't done in the gaming industry is that we haven't brought advertising, sponsorship and product placement to bear in a way that could broaden the audience. Now, I don't think anyone in the world - except maybe people who work in advertising - would stand up and say: "I love advertising, I want more of it!" But the flipside of it is that I like the price of the internet, I like the price of TV which comes as a result of advertising. I like the fact I can buy your magazine on the store shelf and it doesn't cost me $27
Yes, it isn't like you have to pay for an ISP or have to pay for cable to get more than 7 channels. And lets just ignore the fact that they already do product advertisement in some sports games, which from what I can tell hasn't lower the cost for games at all. Putting that all aside, let's look at the gaming market..
It consists mostly of males ranging from somewhere around 8 to 40. And a lot of the older ones have grew up playing video games for a while. The point Mr. Allard is missing with Nintendo's controller is accessability. TV, movies, and the Internet don't have a wider audience because of advertising(and thus a cheaper entry fee). They have a broader audience because it's very easy to stare at screen or read a web browser and use a mouse.
Looking at the accessability for video games it's easy to see why they're only enticing to those who've grown up with them(or young enough that it's much easier to pick up). Now a days, most games make use of 2 direction pads/sticks and I would say around 8 actions buttons. For someone who hasn't grown up playing video games, that's a lot to deal with if you want to start playing video games.
If Nintendo plays this right with its more intuitative controller and its download service of older, simplier games, I think they might just be able to find that broader gaming market that won't be won by advertising.
I can understand your lament for the disapppearance of movie magic. It's called growing up and becoming jaded. I'm sure there are many young kids out there who Narnia this weekend and were amazed by what they saw because, in part, they know nothing about blue screen, CG workstations, 3D modeling, or any of that stuff. But there's also more to a movie than it's special effects. There's the characters, the story, and for this movie, the adventure into a new world. Part of the magic is conveying things in film that couldn't been seen in real life. But there's another part; It's the creation of a world full of characters, events, and drama that makes you step out of your boring day-to-day life and into this world for 2 hours. That's movie magic.
It might of been easier when you were young; When you don't have much knowledge about the world, even seeing the most generic of special effects and contrived stories will make you feel like you're on adventure that makes you forget all that you know. But just because you're older, wiser, and more knowledged doesn't mean that movie magic is gone. You just have to find things that are new and different to you. Try to expand your movie horizons. And after trying, if you still can't recapture that magic after even with all the various movies that are out there right now, then I suggest you take a fancy to another art form.
I know there are a lot of popular, well-known myths out there to bust(like that one myth about soda being able to rot teeth given enough time). But it seems as the guys show goes on and on, it would be tougher to find good myths to bust. How do you look for good myths to bust that make for good television?
Big difference. In video games, sequels to videogames are the exception to the rule, where as in movies it's the opposite. In video game sequels most often the same people who worked on the predecessor work on the current game in the series. And in most cases these people see some of the mistakes they made on the first game and fix it in the next game. In movies however, it's not so easy to get all the same people together who made the first movie. And unlike in video games, trying to recapture the magic of the first movie just doesn't work as well if you just repeat all the things that made the first movie so good(see Terminator 3 or Jurrassic Park 3 for good examples).
Of course we can put all these facts aside and get to the fundamentals. It takes good artists and inspiration to make good movies or video games regardless whether it's a sequel or not. But for video game creators, a video game formula can stay fresh much longer than a movie formula can. Thus, video game creators can get away with repeating the same shit over and over much longer than they can if they were making a movie.
Yeah, I don't know where that visor idea came from(the author making shit up is my guess), but it's completely ludricrous. First off, it would probably cost more than the console itself. Nintendo's strategy with the GC, and I imagine the Revolution, is going to focus on the games not expensive cutting edge hardware(head visors aren't cheap). Second, something that big would definitely be shown off with the preview of the controller if it was a big part of Nintendo's strategy. Third, after the Virtual Boy's failure would a head visor be something that Nintendo would want to repeat? Lastly, remember all that hype about VR in the mid 90's? Remember how nothing became of it? There's a reason that happened.
Overall this "article" was disappointing. All it was is a lot of speculation(very obvious after reading the visor idea) spread over too many individual webpages(7 pages with very little text on each page) with a few details that Sony/MS/Nintendo have already announced with the showing of their consoles.
A discussion about sex on Slashdot? I guess you missed the title of website.
But anyway, my thoughts...
Sex is a very visceral and a very physically intimate thing. While emotions have been conveyed well before in video games, for the most part it isn't conveyed as well in movies or books for example. This is because of the whole thing about video games being interactive art. I don't doubt a sex scene could be good in a video game. I've had a couple ideas myself. Let's take for granted that we're able to make models and graphics that are exciting sexually. Not too hard right? *smirk* And let's say everything else(music, audio, etc.) isn't done bad either. That still leave one big thing: the game has to be *fun* to interactive with.
Good ideas are there, the problem is the examples given in story caption; they're bad games. The people who make these games are appealing to lowest common denominator. They're making for these "sexy" games for cheap as possible, using the idea that people will play through a mediocre game on the chance of seeing (.)(.). You need someone with talent, or at least someone who has good ideas, and the knowledge how to implement those ideas well. But at the end of the day, it will always cheaper to make some 3D models with big (.)(.) and make a "mash X to make the girl orgasm" game than to hire someone with the talent, inspiration, and drive to push for an innovative way to have sex in the game.
Not that I can blame them. But personally I'd rather be playing with some real (.)(.) than playing with my joystick...Life is a far better video game when comes to sex.
However - and this is barely arguable - it's all been downhill ever since FFVI.
"Barely arguable" if you let nostalgia cloud your judgement on what has been done well with the series. It's clear that FF VI is one the high points of series(My personal favorites would be something like FF VI,VII,X), but to say that the series has been downhill since VI is overgeneralizing.
There has been quite a lot good things done with the series since VI: the addition of CGI did much to potray the worlds of FF; Many fun mini games have been added since VI; Uematsu still created fantastic soundtracks; The recent use of good voice acting in X helped add much to characters. Likewise, there's been a lot of bad things donce since VI: character development in VIII was very poor; The series hasn't seen a great villian like Kefka in a long time; VIII's magic system stunk; FF X-2, while very fun to play, had a story that seemed pretty lame compared to its predecessors.
I think each title in the series should be judged as a stand alone RPG. Outside of similar sound effects & menus, chocobos, moogles, and a few other staple marks of the series, each FF game has nothing to do with another(even FF X and FF X-2 had quite substantial differences).
Slashdot Mirror
I'd also like to point out that virtually every innovative console game (and boring imitator) since the NES 20 years ago has used basically the same controller design.
And I'd like to point out that every controller design from Nintendo since the NES(well before the GC) has had an impact on that same controller we've been using. Cross D-pad, shoulder buttons, analog sticks, canned force feedback are all console precendents set by Nintendo.
I think you missed my point. I wasn't saying that BitTorrent is just another iteration of file sharing like FTP; it isn't. You're right. It is a solid protocol that allows for much more dissemination of bits than FTP. My argument was against the description of BitTorrent as a "killer app" that has just recently made broadband valuable for many people.
The point I made was that there have been numerous popular file sharing applications out there before BitTorrent that has made broadband a must have(i.e. killer apps). Many people have already gotten broadband for file sharing on FTP, Morpheous, Napster, and the like.
I was pointing out was that just because BitTorrent needs a lot of bandwidth to become successful (functional not being synomous with successful) doesn't mean that it's being adopting in mass like a killer app.
The irony is that until BitTorrent, broadband was having a hell of a time getting people to sign up--because, after all, what would they need it for? And now that there's actually a "killer app," people are signing up so fast and using so much that it's causing a "backslash" (heh heh). Either feast or famine, nothing in-between.
Come on now, there has been plenty of bandwidth sucking software apps out there for quite some time now. FTP(among other types of servers) servers hosting large files have been out there forever. Putting that aside, there have been many P2P file sharing apps(Napster,Morpheous,BearShare,DC,etc...) out there for years that predate BitTorrent. And for about the same number of years, Broadband providers have been successfully advertising about the advantages of broadband for downloading music and movies(even before there were legal services like iTunes).
BitTorrent hasn't done anything for selling broadband outside of what has already been done. In fact, there is data out there suggesting that broadband growth is, at least in the US, leveling off. If you look for the data out there, price and lack of neccessity(e.g. only need internet service for email) seem to be the sticking issues for many people not adopting broadband. The significance of BitTorrent regarding bandwidth usage is that requires a large chain of people downloading and uploading at the same time, often for hours or even days depending on the file. It's not that a ton of people are adopting the program in mass. It's that the protocol requires a lot of bandwidth for it to be successful.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that only an option if you have a v1.0-1.5 XBox? I bought a new retail XBox(v 1.6) and from all the sources I've heard you're pretty much stuck with having to get a modchip if you want to mod it.
Better yet, if cost isn't much of an issue, buy an original XBox and modify it(or buy it premodded if soldering scares you). For $150(retail XBox) + $50(a nice modchip) + $100 (hard drive upgrade) = $300 you can get a gaming console that can do more than the XBox360. Granted it's not as pretty as an XBox360 in a number of ways, but the stuff you can do with it makes up for that. XBox Media Center(which will play almost any computer video/audio/picture format) + emulation of almost any popular old video game console turns the XBox into a media box that really has no rival out there.
Back to the topic, people have already figured out how to stream non-supported video formats(e.g. DivX,XviD,etc.) to the XBox360. I guess this is another extension of that. Outside the ass backwards way to set it up, it also seems like lag would be an issue as well. Of course, that's just my intial speculation. To me, until some figures out how to get unsigned code on the 360 it's just not worth the effort to do stuff like this when there's cheaper(and better) alternatives out there.
Could it be that the type of people who like to enjoy street racing enjoy video games about the same thing?
Could it be that people can be influenced by something as trivial as a video game because they don't always think rationally about the impact of their actions in real life.
Could it be that even though the prior proposition is most likely true(in some form) that statistically it's irrelevant because the vast majority of people who play "Need for Speed" don't go out and street race because of the inherent dangers involved?
Or could be that almost anything in the human experience can influence a person to do something that might lead to a tragic accident, and just because that's true, it says nothing about whether that influence is a good or bad thing?
I leave it to you to decide.
Implemented? Using an software exploit(e.g. the PS2 independance exploit) or mod chip, you can run homebrew software that lets you format a new hard disc, install new partitions for each game, and run the partitions off the hard drive. It's not flawless, there's like a 70% compatibility for my version of HD Loader that uses a softmod, but it runs a lot of popular games. I have almost my entire collection on a 320 GB disc. It's very nice, especially since the DVD-ROM drive is about busted.
You can use almost(there's a compatibility list online somewhere) any IDE hard drive with the network adapter. Even the Sony HD is a Maxtor 40GB drive with special firmware or something that allows to be used by the PS2 browser. I don't know what the average life of a internal IDE hard drive is but I say 20 years isn't unreasonable. It's certainly a lot longer than the POS optical drives they put in PS2. The first one I got direct from Sony didn't work when I got it. The second one crapped out in a couple of years. And the one I have now, it's drive has about had it.
Check out ps2hd.com. There are various software exploits out there that can make use of the PS2 HD for more than just memory card backups and FF XI cache data. You can load up emulators, media playing programs, and images of PS2 games with the hard drive.
I thought this story covered the term but apparently it doesn't. Anyway, the medical term for Henry's condition is called anterograde amnesia. And if it hasn't already been mentioned here, it's also the same ailment that the protagonist Leonard has in the movie Memento. And if you liked that movie I reccommend reading the short story it was based on. It's an excellent piece of prose.
Here you go.
Well according to the wikipedia, the game has been out since the 22nd of last month in Japan.
Is this the best you can do? How is this even a story about gaming? This is something I expect to read on Fark, or some other website's dumb story of day section, not on the front page of Slashdot. I guess you can't expect much from stories posted @ 3 a.m. EST.
*ahem* read the article again. It WAS considered...
Other notable entries in the driving genre this year include Gran Turismo 4, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Wipeout Pure.
I too found it strange that GT4 didn't make the list. But I have yet to play it or its contemporaries so I can't say whether or not the other games deserve the title more or not.
Pressure sensitive buttons can be useful. It's just that most games out there don't even try to do anything with them. Examples good use: Any decent racing game(that should be a no brainer) and Metal Gear Solid 2/3. In the game, when you have a weapon equiped, you press down the fire button to aim the weapon. Releasing the button makes you fire the weapon. If you take aim and decide not to fire, you can slowly let off the button and put down weapon without firing.
Excuse me, how is this exactly flamebait? I am making a point about the perception what the people at MS have regarding their competition. If this is flamebait, who is it am I'm trying to get to flame me? People whom I angered by suggesting that Nintendo has come up with a novel control idea? People whom I angered by suggesting modern controllers are bit unapproachable by some gamers? Please, oh moderation god, answer me. Tell me that it wasn't just some idiot out there with mod points who sought fit to classify me as a Nintendo fanboy just because I think Nintendo's new controller is a cool idea.
Ahem, again with the tags properly closed...my apologies.
Mr. Allard misses the point to broading the video game market. They ask him:
Looking at the Revolution, with its controller and game download service, how important is technology like that for growing the market, or is there still room for growth with conventional games?
He then starts talking about the cost of games. As if the cost was the thing preventing more people from picking up the newest console and start gaming. Granted, it some way it does impede some people, but most likely if they like gaming they have a older generation console and play games on that. He then throws out this gem:
And what we haven't done in the gaming industry is that we haven't brought advertising, sponsorship and product placement to bear in a way that could broaden the audience. Now, I don't think anyone in the world - except maybe people who work in advertising - would stand up and say: "I love advertising, I want more of it!" But the flipside of it is that I like the price of the internet, I like the price of TV which comes as a result of advertising. I like the fact I can buy your magazine on the store shelf and it doesn't cost me $27
Yes, it isn't like you have to pay for an ISP or have to pay for cable to get more than 7 channels. And lets just ignore the fact that they already do product advertisement in some sports games, which from what I can tell hasn't lower the cost for games at all. Putting that all aside, let's look at the gaming market..
It consists mostly of males ranging from somewhere around 8 to 40. And a lot of the older ones have grew up playing video games for a while. The point Mr. Allard is missing with Nintendo's controller is accessability. TV, movies, and the Internet don't have a wider audience because of advertising(and thus a cheaper entry fee). They have a broader audience because it's very easy to stare at screen or read a web browser and use a mouse.
Looking at the accessability for video games it's easy to see why they're only enticing to those who've grown up with them(or young enough that it's much easier to pick up). Now a days, most games make use of 2 direction pads/sticks and I would say around 8 actions buttons. For someone who hasn't grown up playing video games, that's a lot to deal with if you want to start playing video games.
If Nintendo plays this right with its more intuitative controller and its download service of older, simplier games, I think they might just be able to find that broader gaming market that won't be won by advertising.
Mr. Allard misses the point to broading the video game market. They ask him:
Looking at the Revolution, with its controller and game download service, how important is technology like that for growing the market, or is there still room for growth with conventional games?
He then starts talking about the cost of games. As if the cost was the thing preventing more people from picking up the newest console and start gaming. Granted, it some way it does impede some people, but most likely if they like gaming they have a older generation console and play games on that. He then throws out this gem:
And what we haven't done in the gaming industry is that we haven't brought advertising, sponsorship and product placement to bear in a way that could broaden the audience. Now, I don't think anyone in the world - except maybe people who work in advertising - would stand up and say: "I love advertising, I want more of it!" But the flipside of it is that I like the price of the internet, I like the price of TV which comes as a result of advertising. I like the fact I can buy your magazine on the store shelf and it doesn't cost me $27
Yes, it isn't like you have to pay for an ISP or have to pay for cable to get more than 7 channels. And lets just ignore the fact that they already do product advertisement in some sports games, which from what I can tell hasn't lower the cost for games at all. Putting that all aside, let's look at the gaming market..
It consists mostly of males ranging from somewhere around 8 to 40. And a lot of the older ones have grew up playing video games for a while. The point Mr. Allard is missing with Nintendo's controller is accessability. TV, movies, and the Internet don't have a wider audience because of advertising(and thus a cheaper entry fee). They have a broader audience because it's very easy to stare at screen
or read a web browser and use a mouse.
Looking at the accessability for video games it's easy to see why they're only enticing to those who've grown up with them(or young enough that it's much easier to pick up). Now a days, most games make use of 2 direction pads/sticks and I would say around 8 actions buttons. For someone who hasn't grown up playing video games, that's a lot to deal with if you want to start playing video games.
If Nintendo plays this right with its more intuitative controller and its download service of older, simplier games, I think they might just be able to find that broader gaming market that won't be won by advertising.
+5 Insightful? Please...
I can understand your lament for the disapppearance of movie magic. It's called growing up and becoming jaded. I'm sure there are many young kids out there who Narnia this weekend and were amazed by what they saw because, in part, they know nothing about blue screen, CG workstations, 3D modeling, or any of that stuff. But there's also more to a movie than it's special effects. There's the characters, the story, and for this movie, the adventure into a new world. Part of the magic is conveying things in film that couldn't been seen in real life. But there's another part; It's the creation of a world full of characters, events, and drama that makes you step out of your boring day-to-day life and into this world for 2 hours. That's movie magic.
It might of been easier when you were young; When you don't have much knowledge about the world, even seeing the most generic of special effects and contrived stories will make you feel like you're on adventure that makes you forget all that you know. But just because you're older, wiser, and more knowledged doesn't mean that movie magic is gone. You just have to find things that are new and different to you. Try to expand your movie horizons. And after trying, if you still can't recapture that magic after even with all the various movies that are out there right now, then I suggest you take a fancy to another art form.
I know there are a lot of popular, well-known myths out there to bust(like that one myth about soda being able to rot teeth given enough time). But it seems as the guys show goes on and on, it would be tougher to find good myths to bust. How do you look for good myths to bust that make for good television?
Big difference. In video games, sequels to videogames are the exception to the rule, where as in movies it's the opposite. In video game sequels most often the same people who worked on the predecessor work on the current game in the series. And in most cases these people see some of the mistakes they made on the first game and fix it in the next game. In movies however, it's not so easy to get all the same people together who made the first movie. And unlike in video games, trying to recapture the magic of the first movie just doesn't work as well if you just repeat all the things that made the first movie so good(see Terminator 3 or Jurrassic Park 3 for good examples).
Of course we can put all these facts aside and get to the fundamentals. It takes good artists and inspiration to make good movies or video games regardless whether it's a sequel or not. But for video game creators, a video game formula can stay fresh much longer than a movie formula can. Thus, video game creators can get away with repeating the same shit over and over much longer than they can if they were making a movie.
Yeah, I don't know where that visor idea came from(the author making shit up is my guess), but it's completely ludricrous. First off, it would probably cost more than the console itself. Nintendo's strategy with the GC, and I imagine the Revolution, is going to focus on the games not expensive cutting edge hardware(head visors aren't cheap). Second, something that big would definitely be shown off with the preview of the controller if it was a big part of Nintendo's strategy. Third, after the Virtual Boy's failure would a head visor be something that Nintendo would want to repeat? Lastly, remember all that hype about VR in the mid 90's? Remember how nothing became of it? There's a reason that happened.
Overall this "article" was disappointing. All it was is a lot of speculation(very obvious after reading the visor idea) spread over too many individual webpages(7 pages with very little text on each page) with a few details that Sony/MS/Nintendo have already announced with the showing of their consoles.
Aw that's nothing. Check out the article for the Star Wars Holiday Special and its absurd 20 paragraph plot synopsis.
A discussion about sex on Slashdot? I guess you missed the title of website.
But anyway, my thoughts...
Sex is a very visceral and a very physically intimate thing. While emotions have been conveyed well before in video games, for the most part it isn't conveyed as well in movies or books for example. This is because of the whole thing about video games being interactive art. I don't doubt a sex scene could be good in a video game. I've had a couple ideas myself. Let's take for granted that we're able to make models and graphics that are exciting sexually. Not too hard right? *smirk* And let's say everything else(music, audio, etc.) isn't done bad either. That still leave one big thing: the game has to be *fun* to interactive with.
Good ideas are there, the problem is the examples given in story caption; they're bad games. The people who make these games are appealing to lowest common denominator. They're making for these "sexy" games for cheap as possible, using the idea that people will play through a mediocre game on the chance of seeing (.)(.). You need someone with talent, or at least someone who has good ideas, and the knowledge how to implement those ideas well. But at the end of the day, it will always cheaper to make some 3D models with big (.)(.) and make a "mash X to make the girl orgasm" game than to hire someone with the talent, inspiration, and drive to push for an innovative way to have sex in the game.
Not that I can blame them. But personally I'd rather be playing with some real (.)(.) than playing with my joystick...Life is a far better video game when comes to sex.
However - and this is barely arguable - it's all been downhill ever since FFVI.
"Barely arguable" if you let nostalgia cloud your judgement on what has been done well with the series. It's clear that FF VI is one the high points of series(My personal favorites would be something like FF VI,VII,X), but to say that the series has been downhill since VI is overgeneralizing.
There has been quite a lot good things done with the series since VI: the addition of CGI did much to potray the worlds of FF; Many fun mini games have been added since VI; Uematsu still created fantastic soundtracks; The recent use of good voice acting in X helped add much to characters. Likewise, there's been a lot of bad things donce since VI: character development in VIII was very poor; The series hasn't seen a great villian like Kefka in a long time; VIII's magic system stunk; FF X-2, while very fun to play, had a story that seemed pretty lame compared to its predecessors.
I think each title in the series should be judged as a stand alone RPG. Outside of similar sound effects & menus, chocobos, moogles, and a few other staple marks of the series, each FF game has nothing to do with another(even FF X and FF X-2 had quite substantial differences).
Funny, Informative, and Insightful...A well done post good sir...