So in other words a huge media conglomerates might be interested buying a huge game publishers so they don't have to worry about accquiring the rights to big game franchises to make crappy movies from them.
Not that I have a problem with this. I just hate huge media congloms talk as if there's going to be tremendous cinergy between a huge movie studio and game studio. There is potential there in theory. Video games are a mix of all kinds of media( gameplay, music, video). Having a great game is made even better if the cut scenes have a great story and and a cinematic element to it. But in practice film makers, making a movie from a game, and game makers, making a game from a movie, are usually content with resting on the popularity of the big name they've accquired and just making a mediocre game or movie.
All I'm saying is that movie makers should worry about making a good movie first and game makers should worry about making a good game first before they attempt to cross over any elements between the two.
What Microsoft and Bungie should do is just make the movie themselves. Make the movie a 90 minute cutscene using the Halo 2 engine. It would cost a fraction of the cost and it would be on the same level as all the othermoviesmadefromgames.
While we're at it, Namco should have done this too for Tekken instead of allowing this piece of shit to be made. It shouldn't be that hard. If the Red Vs. Blue guys did it with next to nothing for a budge someone with a serious budget should be able to make some good, right?
I think by confusing he means, hard to remember. I remember when I first saw the Playstation control I laughed. "Shapes for buttons? That's silly," I said. When I got one, it took a while to memorize all the button positions. With previous game consoles a lettering system made it very easy to figure out the ordering of the buttons. For example the SNES: XY on top tier that moves left to right and AB on bottom tier that moves left right. But with abitrary geometric shapes, it's a little tougher I would say.
I seriously doubt there will ever be another crash again. The market is too large and well established now. When the crash of '83 or '84(I forget when it was) happened the game industry was still trying to define itself. It was still trying to decide if it was a part of the toy industry or the consumer electronics industry. 2 decades later, video games are as well established as an entertainment medium just as much as movies and games. Unfortunately it has meant the number of mediocre titles has risen, but it also means the number of chances for truly great titles will appear too.
What does this have to do with anything? Are you implying that the union workers are "paid enough" because they are in the union? Or that the union will protect them is the movie industry starts making less movies, and therefore needs less stunt men or key grips?
My point was that those guys have got paid for their services and they will get paid regardless of how a movie does. They don't receive a cut from the movie gross. Thus, the conclusion that piracy really hurts these guys is a bit far streched.
Good. They are there to make money, and to increase the value of their shareholders' investments, not to provide entertaining fare to those who are not prepared to pay for it. Any corporation that doesn't put making money first is not doing its job.
Of course that's to be expected. What I was getting at was that is the MPAA is trying to use appeal to people's morality while their only motivation is money. That's what makes me sick: the MPAA masqurading their cause as moral issue when it's money issue.
It's this corporate mentality that makes me sick. The MPAA tries to appeals to people's morality by telling people piracy is stealing from the stunt men or the key grips(ignoring the fact they're union workers). But when it comes down to it's just about money.
In their utilitarian thinking, it's probably not worth the MPAA's time(time = money) to go after people like this even though they're closer to "stealing" their product than the people who download movies because they're too cheap to go to the theater. But it's worth the effort to sue P2P users because not only do they get money out of it, they also get the propganda out to the masses that if you use P2P you will get sued. There is no righteous cause in the MPAA minds. Their only cause is for $.
Until the MPAA starts cracking down people actually selling their wares instead of people downloading them for free they will not get a tear of sympathy from me. Seriously, I don't understand it. When I was NYC, street vendors make no attempt to hide the fact they are selling pirated goods. Why isn't the MPAA cracking down on them instead of college kids that have nothing better to do with their bandwidth than download DiVX ripped movies?
"The button's location is [architectured] on purpose," Kutaragi added. "It's according to specifications. This is something that we've created, and this is our specification. There was a clear purpose to it, and it wasn't a mistake."
I see. I'm sure the translator made a mistake what Kutaragi really said:
"Production was already done by the time we knew of the design flaw. We are too lazy to go back and do something about it."
Just like Lucas has ALWAYS knew that Star Wars was going to be a 9 part series and Wachowskis ALWAYS knew The Matrix was going to be a trilogy. Brilliant!
Amen. I wish people that were completely disappointed by the hype of DOOM3 would say that rather than bash the game. You mentioned the comparison with RE which I think a lot of people missed. This remake of Doom was suppose to be much more atmospheric and terrorizing(like surival horror games) than the original.
A lot of people ripped it on not being able to use the flashlight at the same time as your weapon but I thought it added to the suspense. If you played it like a standard Id FPS I could see how you could get frustrated by running around and not having enough time to see anything in the dark. But if you played it at a slower pace like Resident Evil or Silent Hill it was much more intense. There was many times I found myself blasting my shotgun off in the dark because I thought I saw something move in the shadows.
Another time I remember quite well was that section in which you have to move the toxic barrels via the crane to make your way through. I had picked up the PDA there and I started reading it. I heard a noise and put down the PDA menu. Not being new to Doom, I was expecting an ambush but there wasn't one. I even looked outside to check to see for anything in the area. Nothing. So I went back in the room and went back to the PDA. I got through the email, so I go to the audio log and leave the PDA menu. Next thing I know I find myself staring at an Imp ripping away at my flesh. It scared the shit out me so much I had reload the game since it killed me before I regained my senses. Good stuff.
I thought we already were. New creative games are becoming far and few between. It's sad but soon enough the "mainstream" game industry will be the same as Hollywood cranking out the same crap over and over again. Once and awhile there will be something new, but for the most part anything genuinely new will be from (or at least I hope) small independent game companies showing their thing at indie-game festivals.
I was just curious because I recently noticed how bad it's gotten so I did a poll of my games(the number of non-franchise/sequel games vs. total number of games for the last-gen systems compared with the current gen systems):
(Last-gen PS): 21/28
(This-gen PS2): 5/18
Right now I don't see that number getting any better. Any one else care to share some numbers?
I know video games being sequelized to the point of oblivion has been around for a while(I'm looking at you CAPCOM). But this year has seemed worse than most others: Metroid Prime 2, GTA: SA, HL2, DOOM 3, Halo 2, Tekken 5, Silent Hill 4, and I'm sure could go on if I wanted to. At least one good thing that sets video games apart from Hollywood sequels is that the bad sequels are the exception istead of the rule. Putting that aside, I am starting to feel tired of playing the same games over and over again.
If we're going by the "Touching is good but feeling is better." hint my guess is that it's some sort of tactile force feedback in the controller. Or at least that's my hope. While force feedback can be fun(see Metal Gear Solid for one it's best uses) most games use it for just another effect when your character gets damaged or something basic like that.
I remember reading about these tactile feedback control in video games a few years back. They had motors in the controller that responded to what was going on in the game. For example, if you had a character walking up a hill the controller stick would respond back by pushing in the opposite direction so that you could feel how tough it was going on up the hill. The only big drawback was that I imagine controllers like that were pretty expensive.
I can't imagine the price being much cheaper now but if there's anyone I would expect to try it out in their controllers(even if it's on a really basic level) it would be Nintendo. With the exception of the Gamecube(and some of their portables) they have tried to put something new into each controller design. NES d-pad, SNES shoulder buttons, N64 analog stick, etc. Even if this all speculation, if Nintendo doesn't try this for their next-gen system someone else should.
This holiday break one my friends had a temp position working at Gamestop. From the stories he told me it sounded like it was hell(stand around sort boxes, shitty pay, people that don't know what they're looking for, management that treated them like shit and treated their own employees more like potential theives than their customers).
Anyway, his big annoyance at the job was there was a little number of PSTwo's(or whatever you call the newer slim version of the PS2) and people kept asking them if they had any in stock. Every few minutes they get a call from someone asking if they had them in stock. And despite my friend trying give friendly advice(go order online, suggesting other stores) people still got upset as if the store was suppose to have an unlimited number of PS2's.
It got to the point where people calling for PS2's became a joke itself. He even started calling(and getting his friends to call too) the store asking questions not unlike what the real customers asked:
"Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
"Do you have any PS2's?"
"No we do not."
"Well, could you just make me one before I come in?"
"No, we do not make the PS2's, only sell them."
"You're sure you don't have any PS2's in the back?"
"Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
(big southern drawl) "You have any of 'em Zeeee-boxes?"
"Um, you mean X-Box, sir?"
"NO, NO, *Zeeee*-Box. Like Zebra"
"Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
(irate father voice)"Are you guys taking preorders for the PSP2?"
"You mean PSP, sir?"
"No it's a PS....shut up! I'm trying to asking the man about it!"
No, the best solution is to solve the core problem, and not put bandaids on the symptoms. The core problem is that social security is a giant pyramid scheme. The concept itself is broken and needs to be discarded.
While I agree with you, I think SS is more accurately called a giant ponzi scheme rather than pyramid scheme. Either way you label though the result is the same; The n00bs to the system get screwed.
I've had discussions with many people about this before. When I talk about "art" I simply define it as "the self expression of creativity on to some type of medium." For that seems to cover almost all forms "art as we know it(e.g. paintings, novels, music, movies, video games, performances, etc.). A lot of the people, art snobs I should say, seem to hold something more abstract and personal into their definition of art. A few friends I've talked said that an artistic work must "have a soul" for it to be art. But I think that whether or not a piece of art "has a soul" depends totally upon it's creator. Some people consider art more personal than others.
For example, there are those who create art that put their personal experiences, reflections, and ideas into the art they create. I would say that art has "a soul" since it reflects the soul of it's creator. There are other artists though that don't put so much of their personal experiences in their art for whatever reason (e.g. it's not applicable to the medium, there's other motivations for their creation of the art, etc.). But unless it is created entirely by mimicry and not one original thought has went into the creation it is still art by my definition. As for the question of good or bad art, that is completely subjective to critic. That and it also depends upon the medium as what makes a good movie, does not make a good game, does not make a good book, and so on. But there are some loose rules that people use in that definition. Everyone has there own. Two rules of mine I throw out there are:
1. It expresses some original ideas; It can be something completely original amongst its peers(e.g. creating a new movie genre like the mockumentary) or it can be something that takes what has already been done by its peers and expand upon that(e.g. taking the elements of RPG's and FPS's and putting it into one game).
2. The piece of art makes good of what has already been established from the medium. Or to put it another way it accomplishes it purpose of creation (e.g. a painting should be pleasing to view, a techno/dance song should be fun to dance to).
But even those rules are subjective. For example, what may be "original" to some might have been seen a thousand times by another. Somewhere amongst everyone's own rules for "good art" there is overlap. Enough so that rules are somewhat defined but the only way you can truly tell is by already knowing the taste of the critic that says the art is good or bad.
...Metal gear (which btw, the original was originally released on Nintendo's NES way back in the day)...
I just wanted to mention that the original Metal Gear wasn't released for the NES. It was originally released on the MSX. The NES version was a port from the original MSX title. A pretty bad port I should say considering you don't even see Metal Gear in the NES version. If you're a pretty big fan of the series, I'd reccommend downloading a MSX emulator and trying out the original and it's sequel Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
I do live near a Wal*Mart, 2 in fact. It never stops amazing me how much stuff they sell that is so cheap. However the people working there are generaly a sad lot.
If you do not like the working conditions at Wal*Mart go to school, get a degree (or certificate), educate yourself so you can do better. Don't have children until you you can afford to raise them. Make sound finacial decisions in your life and don't feel pressed to be a wage slave. Instead of the state providing health insurance, they should provide educational opportunities. The fact that the state has to pick up the tab for medical costs, and health insurance for so many people spaeks volumes to its failing to educate it population.
In the mean time, those that are motovated to get an education and take care of themselves will not have to work at Wal*Mart.
And yeah, I know that there will always be a certain subset of the population that will never get educated, and these are the people that we all will have to support in some fashion or another. But I would bet that there are many people out there that with the proper educational oppertunities will be able to do better for themselves.
You know the phrase "It takes money to make money." It applies to education as well. It's expensive in terms of time and money. For a lot of people who have nothing(e.g. born into a family that has no financial resources to help them out) working a shitty job at Wal-Mart is the only choice. It's easy to say, "I'll get an education then I'll get a better job." But an education doesn't guarantee you a job. It puts you in a better position(statistically)to get a better job but it doesn't guarantee you anything. And when you just make enough money to pay for food, housing, transport, etc. it's very hard to make that kind of investment of money and time.
Yes, I agree there are people out there working shitty jobs because they are unmotivated and lazy. But not everyone working shitty jobs are there because of their own faults.
This is a bit off topic but I just wanted to say that the Matrix Trilogy shouldn't be considered a trilogy at all. It's a trilogy in the sense that it's a collection of related works but not in the sense that most people know trilogies(i.e. 3 seperate stories that together have one large story arc).
I think I heard a while back before the release of the sequels that this was a planned trilogy. That is BS. The Matrix: Revolutions is just the remaining 3rd act of The Matrix: Reloaded. On it's own it makes no sense as a seperate movie. There are no introductions of characters or conflicts. The only thing it has is the resolution of conflicts that Reloaded setup. I think what really happened was they had so much story with the sequel they decided to break into 2 parts and label it as a trilogy. But a trilogy it is not.
And as a last note the "The Matrix: Revolutions" is a horrible title. It should have been called "The Matrix: Peace Treaty"
Modern games are made more with the non-hardcore gamer in mind nowadays.
Modern games have much more complex controls thus requiring the game designers to focus more on a learning curve than brute challenges to keep the gamer occupied.
Modern games have much much more content than 128Kb cartidges thus they don't have to rely on insane challenges to extend a game's length.
Modern games have much more customizability to fit a gamer's skill level
Modern games have branched out to different genres that have different challenges. Challenges that don't rely solely on dying over and over to figure out some pattern.
And that's about all I have to say. If you still don't believe me try playing the original Devil May Cry on Dante Must Die mode then tell me that modern games aren't hard. Games with die-retry-die-retry challenges are still out there but they're shadowed by a ton of different options/genres/whatever. If you want to complaint about how new games are tough enough either change the difficulty or play a different game. I however enjoy the wide variety of games that are out there nowadays.
But let's face it. I'd rather die in my 60's then to live 20 years longer in a nursing home.
You know, if one takes good care of themself they probably won't have to be in a nursing home the last years of their life. Not that I really have a point here, it's just I hear that argument much and I don't really understand it.
My personal favorite name was "Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game." As a game it was horrible but the there was something so funny about it's genesis: They took a good fighting game, turned it into a shitty movie, then turned it into a more shitty game based on said movie about game.
It amazing how ludricious CAPCOM has gotten with all it's incarnations of Street Fighter. I tried searching gamefaqs.com for "street fighter" to see how many games there have been but there were over 50 hits. Does anyone know how many has there been?
And of course the oblibligatory crazy amalgamation of the street fighter games:
*deep breath*
Super Street Fighter EX Zero II Alpha Upper-Turbo-Gold Plus: Special Hyper-Rainbow-Dash Championship Edition X: W Double-3rd Strike Impact: The Movie Vs. X-Men Vs. Marvel Super Heroes
The most reason Halo was overrated/overhyped was singleplayer. Multiplayer is pretty solid and very much fun, especially if you get 2 or more Xboxes linked up. Single player got boring fast. Why?
1. Very little interaction with the world: The vehicles were a great touch but other than that the world is pretty static(except for enemies) when it comes to what you can influence around you. To me, I was disappointed. I wanted to do more in the world than just go around and shoot everything. I know it is a shooter, thus it's primary gameplay focus is shooting, but having a use button and more stuff to interact with would have made the game seem less repeatitive
2. Level design sucked in the inside enviroments: For the most part the outside enviroments were awesome. They looked great and made you feel like you were on a big adventure. However, once you got inside a building that's where it started to stink. Whoever was in charge of level designs for the interiors went crazy with the copy and pasting. There was too many times I was asking myself, "have I been here before?" because the layout of some of the places were generic looking hallways and rooms that were used over and over. Many times I was just wandering around just waiting until I saw an enemy, at which point I knew I was in a different area. Bottom line is in a FPS the level design is critical. If you don't have an interesting world to explore through, why the hell should we want to play through it?(Hint: the answer isn't to shoot more monsters.)
I have more points but these were the 2 main complaints I had with the game after hear how great it was. That all said, I believe it was probably Microsoft rushing Bungie to complete the game that lead to these problems. If they were given more time they probably would have had those problems more ironed out than they did.
The Super Nintendo was the best type of video game system ever.
So the SNES was the best game system ever?
That is until the Nintendo 64 came along.
Um the N64 is the best then?
The regular Nintendo was by far the best of them all.
So the NES was the best, ok.
It was technology that was outstanding for its time. Also, look at all at of the classic games that come along with Nintendo. Mario (of every kind, Duck Hunt and Mega Man. That is why Nintendo has not lost its edge.
Um, what does Duck Hunt( a game released 18 years ago)and Mega Man(a series not even exculsive to the Nintendo console since the SNES days and not even made by Nintendo) have to do with Nintendo not losing it's edge recently with the GameCube?
I have to say that I think Mario Sunshine is not as good as Mario 64, but other than that the games Nintendo makes for it's own systems are solid, good games. And not only that they're one of the few companies that aren't afraid to take their game franchises in new directions to keep them fresh(e.g Metroid, Mario). While it might not end up as good(Mario Sunshine) it has payed off sometimes(Metroid Prime). That's why Nintendo hasn't lost their edge. They're willing to change the formula in order to give gamers something new.
I hear this argument much. People compare the games from the NES era to today games and say how games aren't as difficult as they once were. Example: compare the difficulty of the original Super Mario Brothers to Mario Sunshine.
But I think alot of people don't realize that back in the NES day the actual content of a game was much smaller. Play an old school NES game in a emulator with a save state feature, it will take you a hour or two at most to finish the game. Compared that with say, Half Life. Even with built in saving the game will take you probably 10-15 hours to complete. There's way much more content( scripted events, puzzles, movies, etc.) in most today's games compared with older games.
Old NES games had to have some "challenge" component to it otherwise it would be beat in a few hours which wouldn't justify it's $50 price tag. Keep in mind I said "challenge" because many old games were challenging in the sense you had to die A LOT by trial and error before you figured how to beat the boss, make the jump, etc. And in the end, video games are about having fun. Challenge might be related to fun but the two neccesarily don't go hand in hand.
Moreover, there are many of videogames out there where the definition of "challenge" is not the same as the dying-over-and-over type of challenge. Think about multiplayer FPS or RTS games. What's more challenging? Playing actual people with a sense of strategy or some dumb AI? What about games whose challenge is more mental(like strategy based games) than based than reaction time based?
Games have a wider variety of genres than they did back in the NES and as such the definition of "challenge" does too. And if all that doesn't convince you, play Contra: Shattered Soldier. It's just as 'hard' as any NES Contra game and it's certainly harder than the Contra III.
Slashdot Mirror
So in other words a huge media conglomerates might be interested buying a huge game publishers so they don't have to worry about accquiring the rights to big game franchises to make crappy movies from them.
Not that I have a problem with this. I just hate huge media congloms talk as if there's going to be tremendous cinergy between a huge movie studio and game studio. There is potential there in theory. Video games are a mix of all kinds of media( gameplay, music, video). Having a great game is made even better if the cut scenes have a great story and and a cinematic element to it. But in practice film makers, making a movie from a game, and game makers, making a game from a movie, are usually content with resting on the popularity of the big name they've accquired and just making a mediocre game or movie.
All I'm saying is that movie makers should worry about making a good movie first and game makers should worry about making a good game first before they attempt to cross over any elements between the two.
What Microsoft and Bungie should do is just make the movie themselves. Make the movie a 90 minute cutscene using the Halo 2 engine. It would cost a fraction of the cost and it would be on the same level as all the other movies made from games. While we're at it, Namco should have done this too for Tekken instead of allowing this piece of shit to be made. It shouldn't be that hard. If the Red Vs. Blue guys did it with next to nothing for a budge someone with a serious budget should be able to make some good, right?
...until some finds out the code for infinite stamina.
Everything I know I learned from video games.
I think by confusing he means, hard to remember. I remember when I first saw the Playstation control I laughed. "Shapes for buttons? That's silly," I said. When I got one, it took a while to memorize all the button positions. With previous game consoles a lettering system made it very easy to figure out the ordering of the buttons. For example the SNES: XY on top tier that moves left to right and AB on bottom tier that moves left right. But with abitrary geometric shapes, it's a little tougher I would say.
I seriously doubt there will ever be another crash again. The market is too large and well established now. When the crash of '83 or '84(I forget when it was) happened the game industry was still trying to define itself. It was still trying to decide if it was a part of the toy industry or the consumer electronics industry. 2 decades later, video games are as well established as an entertainment medium just as much as movies and games. Unfortunately it has meant the number of mediocre titles has risen, but it also means the number of chances for truly great titles will appear too.
What does this have to do with anything? Are you implying that the union workers are "paid enough" because they are in the union? Or that the union will protect them is the movie industry starts making less movies, and therefore needs less stunt men or key grips?
My point was that those guys have got paid for their services and they will get paid regardless of how a movie does. They don't receive a cut from the movie gross. Thus, the conclusion that piracy really hurts these guys is a bit far streched.
Good. They are there to make money, and to increase the value of their shareholders' investments, not to provide entertaining fare to those who are not prepared to pay for it. Any corporation that doesn't put making money first is not doing its job.
Of course that's to be expected. What I was getting at was that is the MPAA is trying to use appeal to people's morality while their only motivation is money. That's what makes me sick: the MPAA masqurading their cause as moral issue when it's money issue.
It's this corporate mentality that makes me sick. The MPAA tries to appeals to people's morality by telling people piracy is stealing from the stunt men or the key grips(ignoring the fact they're union workers). But when it comes down to it's just about money.
In their utilitarian thinking, it's probably not worth the MPAA's time(time = money) to go after people like this even though they're closer to "stealing" their product than the people who download movies because they're too cheap to go to the theater. But it's worth the effort to sue P2P users because not only do they get money out of it, they also get the propganda out to the masses that if you use P2P you will get sued. There is no righteous cause in the MPAA minds. Their only cause is for $.
Until the MPAA starts cracking down people actually selling their wares instead of people downloading them for free they will not get a tear of sympathy from me. Seriously, I don't understand it. When I was NYC, street vendors make no attempt to hide the fact they are selling pirated goods. Why isn't the MPAA cracking down on them instead of college kids that have nothing better to do with their bandwidth than download DiVX ripped movies?
"The button's location is [architectured] on purpose," Kutaragi added. "It's according to specifications. This is something that we've created, and this is our specification. There was a clear purpose to it, and it wasn't a mistake."
I see. I'm sure the translator made a mistake what Kutaragi really said:
"Production was already done by the time we knew of the design flaw. We are too lazy to go back and do something about it."
Just like Lucas has ALWAYS knew that Star Wars was going to be a 9 part series and Wachowskis ALWAYS knew The Matrix was going to be a trilogy.
Brilliant!
Amen. I wish people that were completely disappointed by the hype of DOOM3 would say that rather than bash the game. You mentioned the comparison with RE which I think a lot of people missed. This remake of Doom was suppose to be much more atmospheric and terrorizing(like surival horror games) than the original.
A lot of people ripped it on not being able to use the flashlight at the same time as your weapon but I thought it added to the suspense. If you played it like a standard Id FPS I could see how you could get frustrated by running around and not having enough time to see anything in the dark. But if you played it at a slower pace like Resident Evil or Silent Hill it was much more intense. There was many times I found myself blasting my shotgun off in the dark because I thought I saw something move in the shadows.
Another time I remember quite well was that section in which you have to move the toxic barrels via the crane to make your way through. I had picked up the PDA there and I started reading it. I heard a noise and put down the PDA menu. Not being new to Doom, I was expecting an ambush but there wasn't one. I even looked outside to check to see for anything in the area. Nothing. So I went back in the room and went back to the PDA. I got through the email, so I go to the audio log and leave the PDA menu. Next thing I know I find myself staring at an Imp ripping away at my flesh. It scared the shit out me so much I had reload the game since it killed me before I regained my senses. Good stuff.
I thought we already were. New creative games are becoming far and few between. It's sad but soon enough the "mainstream" game industry will be the same as Hollywood cranking out the same crap over and over again. Once and awhile there will be something new, but for the most part anything genuinely new will be from (or at least I hope) small independent game companies showing their thing at indie-game festivals.
I was just curious because I recently noticed how bad it's gotten so I did a poll of my games(the number of non-franchise/sequel games vs. total number of games for the last-gen systems compared with the current gen systems):
(Last-gen PS): 21/28
(This-gen PS2): 5/18
Right now I don't see that number getting any better. Any one else care to share some numbers?
I know video games being sequelized to the point of oblivion has been around for a while(I'm looking at you CAPCOM). But this year has seemed worse than most others: Metroid Prime 2, GTA: SA, HL2, DOOM 3, Halo 2, Tekken 5, Silent Hill 4, and I'm sure could go on if I wanted to. At least one good thing that sets video games apart from Hollywood sequels is that the bad sequels are the exception istead of the rule. Putting that aside, I am starting to feel tired of playing the same games over and over again.
If we're going by the "Touching is good but feeling is better." hint my guess is that it's some sort of tactile force feedback in the controller. Or at least that's my hope. While force feedback can be fun(see Metal Gear Solid for one it's best uses) most games use it for just another effect when your character gets damaged or something basic like that.
I remember reading about these tactile feedback control in video games a few years back. They had motors in the controller that responded to what was going on in the game. For example, if you had a character walking up a hill the controller stick would respond back by pushing in the opposite direction so that you could feel how tough it was going on up the hill. The only big drawback was that I imagine controllers like that were pretty expensive.
I can't imagine the price being much cheaper now but if there's anyone I would expect to try it out in their controllers(even if it's on a really basic level) it would be Nintendo. With the exception of the Gamecube(and some of their portables) they have tried to put something new into each controller design. NES d-pad, SNES shoulder buttons, N64 analog stick, etc. Even if this all speculation, if Nintendo doesn't try this for their next-gen system someone else should.
This holiday break one my friends had a temp position working at Gamestop. From the stories he told me it sounded like it was hell(stand around sort boxes, shitty pay, people that don't know what they're looking for, management that treated them like shit and treated their own employees more like potential theives than their customers). Anyway, his big annoyance at the job was there was a little number of PSTwo's(or whatever you call the newer slim version of the PS2) and people kept asking them if they had any in stock. Every few minutes they get a call from someone asking if they had them in stock. And despite my friend trying give friendly advice(go order online, suggesting other stores) people still got upset as if the store was suppose to have an unlimited number of PS2's.
It got to the point where people calling for PS2's became a joke itself. He even started calling(and getting his friends to call too) the store asking questions not unlike what the real customers asked:
"Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
"Do you have any PS2's?"
"No we do not."
"Well, could you just make me one before I come in?"
"No, we do not make the PS2's, only sell them."
"You're sure you don't have any PS2's in the back?"
"Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
(big southern drawl) "You have any of 'em Zeeee-boxes?"
"Um, you mean X-Box, sir?"
"NO, NO, *Zeeee*-Box. Like Zebra"
"Gamestop. Dude Speaking"
(irate father voice)"Are you guys taking preorders for the PSP2?"
"You mean PSP, sir?"
"No it's a PS....shut up! I'm trying to asking the man about it!"
No, the best solution is to solve the core problem, and not put bandaids on the symptoms. The core problem is that social security is a giant pyramid scheme. The concept itself is broken and needs to be discarded.
While I agree with you, I think SS is more accurately called a giant ponzi scheme rather than pyramid scheme. Either way you label though the result is the same; The n00bs to the system get screwed.
I've had discussions with many people about this before. When I talk about "art" I simply define it as "the self expression of creativity on to some type of medium." For that seems to cover almost all forms "art as we know it(e.g. paintings, novels, music, movies, video games, performances, etc.). A lot of the people, art snobs I should say, seem to hold something more abstract and personal into their definition of art. A few friends I've talked said that an artistic work must "have a soul" for it to be art. But I think that whether or not a piece of art "has a soul" depends totally upon it's creator. Some people consider art more personal than others.
:
For example, there are those who create art that put their personal experiences, reflections, and ideas into the art they create. I would say that art has "a soul" since it reflects the soul of it's creator. There are other artists though that don't put so much of their personal experiences in their art for whatever reason (e.g. it's not applicable to the medium, there's other motivations for their creation of the art, etc.). But unless it is created entirely by mimicry and not one original thought has went into the creation it is still art by my definition. As for the question of good or bad art, that is completely subjective to critic. That and it also depends upon the medium as what makes a good movie, does not make a good game, does not make a good book, and so on. But there are some loose rules that people use in that definition. Everyone has there own. Two rules of mine I throw out there are
1. It expresses some original ideas; It can be something completely original amongst its peers(e.g. creating a new movie genre like the mockumentary) or it can be something that takes what has already been done by its peers and expand upon that(e.g. taking the elements of RPG's and FPS's and putting it into one game).
2. The piece of art makes good of what has already been established from the medium. Or to put it another way it accomplishes it purpose of creation (e.g. a painting should be pleasing to view, a techno/dance song should be fun to dance to).
But even those rules are subjective. For example, what may be "original" to some might have been seen a thousand times by another. Somewhere amongst everyone's own rules for "good art" there is overlap. Enough so that rules are somewhat defined but the only way you can truly tell is by already knowing the taste of the critic that says the art is good or bad.
...Metal gear (which btw, the original was originally released on Nintendo's NES way back in the day)...
I just wanted to mention that the original Metal Gear wasn't released for the NES. It was originally released on the MSX. The NES version was a port from the original MSX title. A pretty bad port I should say considering you don't even see Metal Gear in the NES version. If you're a pretty big fan of the series, I'd reccommend downloading a MSX emulator and trying out the original and it's sequel Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
I do live near a Wal*Mart, 2 in fact. It never stops amazing me how much stuff they sell that is so cheap. However the people working there are generaly a sad lot.
If you do not like the working conditions at Wal*Mart go to school, get a degree (or certificate), educate yourself so you can do better. Don't have children until you you can afford to raise them. Make sound finacial decisions in your life and don't feel pressed to be a wage slave. Instead of the state providing health insurance, they should provide educational opportunities. The fact that the state has to pick up the tab for medical costs, and health insurance for so many people spaeks volumes to its failing to educate it population.
In the mean time, those that are motovated to get an education and take care of themselves will not have to work at Wal*Mart.
And yeah, I know that there will always be a certain subset of the population that will never get educated, and these are the people that we all will have to support in some fashion or another. But I would bet that there are many people out there that with the proper educational oppertunities will be able to do better for themselves.
You know the phrase "It takes money to make money." It applies to education as well. It's expensive in terms of time and money. For a lot of people who have nothing(e.g. born into a family that has no financial resources to help them out) working a shitty job at Wal-Mart is the only choice. It's easy to say, "I'll get an education then I'll get a better job." But an education doesn't guarantee you a job. It puts you in a better position(statistically)to get a better job but it doesn't guarantee you anything. And when you just make enough money to pay for food, housing, transport, etc. it's very hard to make that kind of investment of money and time.
Yes, I agree there are people out there working shitty jobs because they are unmotivated and lazy. But not everyone working shitty jobs are there because of their own faults.
Well there's always this.
This is a bit off topic but I just wanted to say that the Matrix Trilogy shouldn't be considered a trilogy at all. It's a trilogy in the sense that it's a collection of related works but not in the sense that most people know trilogies(i.e. 3 seperate stories that together have one large story arc).
I think I heard a while back before the release of the sequels that this was a planned trilogy. That is BS. The Matrix: Revolutions is just the remaining 3rd act of The Matrix: Reloaded. On it's own it makes no sense as a seperate movie. There are no introductions of characters or conflicts. The only thing it has is the resolution of conflicts that Reloaded setup. I think what really happened was they had so much story with the sequel they decided to break into 2 parts and label it as a trilogy. But a trilogy it is not.
And as a last note the "The Matrix: Revolutions" is a horrible title. It should have been called "The Matrix: Peace Treaty"
Modern games are not too easy.
Modern games are made more with the non-hardcore gamer in mind nowadays.
Modern games have much more complex controls thus requiring the game designers to focus more on a learning curve than brute challenges to keep the gamer occupied.
Modern games have much much more content than 128Kb cartidges thus they don't have to rely on insane challenges to extend a game's length.
Modern games have much more customizability to fit a gamer's skill level
Modern games have branched out to different genres that have different challenges. Challenges that don't rely solely on dying over and over to figure out some pattern.
And that's about all I have to say. If you still don't believe me try playing the original Devil May Cry on Dante Must Die mode then tell me that modern games aren't hard. Games with die-retry-die-retry challenges are still out there but they're shadowed by a ton of different options/genres/whatever. If you want to complaint about how new games are tough enough either change the difficulty or play a different game. I however enjoy the wide variety of games that are out there nowadays.
But let's face it. I'd rather die in my 60's then to live 20 years longer in a nursing home.
You know, if one takes good care of themself they probably won't have to be in a nursing home the last years of their life. Not that I really have a point here, it's just I hear that argument much and I don't really understand it.
My personal favorite name was "Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game." As a game it was horrible but the there was something so funny about it's genesis: They took a good fighting game, turned it into a shitty movie, then turned it into a more shitty game based on said movie about game.
It amazing how ludricious CAPCOM has gotten with all it's incarnations of Street Fighter. I tried searching gamefaqs.com for "street fighter" to see how many games there have been but there were over 50 hits. Does anyone know how many has there been?
And of course the oblibligatory crazy amalgamation of the street fighter games:
*deep breath*
Super Street Fighter EX Zero II Alpha Upper-Turbo-Gold Plus: Special Hyper-Rainbow-Dash Championship Edition X: W Double-3rd Strike Impact: The Movie Vs. X-Men Vs. Marvel Super Heroes
*whew*
The most reason Halo was overrated/overhyped was singleplayer. Multiplayer is pretty solid and very much fun, especially if you get 2 or more Xboxes linked up. Single player got boring fast. Why?
1. Very little interaction with the world: The vehicles were a great touch but other than that the world is pretty static(except for enemies) when it comes to what you can influence around you. To me, I was disappointed. I wanted to do more in the world than just go around and shoot everything. I know it is a shooter, thus it's primary gameplay focus is shooting, but having a use button and more stuff to interact with would have made the game seem less repeatitive
2. Level design sucked in the inside enviroments: For the most part the outside enviroments were awesome. They looked great and made you feel like you were on a big adventure. However, once you got inside a building that's where it started to stink. Whoever was in charge of level designs for the interiors went crazy with the copy and pasting. There was too many times I was asking myself, "have I been here before?" because the layout of some of the places were generic looking hallways and rooms that were used over and over. Many times I was just wandering around just waiting until I saw an enemy, at which point I knew I was in a different area. Bottom line is in a FPS the level design is critical. If you don't have an interesting world to explore through, why the hell should we want to play through it?(Hint: the answer isn't to shoot more monsters.)
I have more points but these were the 2 main complaints I had with the game after hear how great it was. That all said, I believe it was probably Microsoft rushing Bungie to complete the game that lead to these problems. If they were given more time they probably would have had those problems more ironed out than they did.
The Super Nintendo was the best type of video game system ever.
So the SNES was the best game system ever?
That is until the Nintendo 64 came along.
Um the N64 is the best then?
The regular Nintendo was by far the best of them all.
So the NES was the best, ok.
It was technology that was outstanding for its time. Also, look at all at of the classic games that come along with Nintendo. Mario (of every kind, Duck Hunt and Mega Man. That is why Nintendo has not lost its edge.
Um, what does Duck Hunt( a game released 18 years ago)and Mega Man(a series not even exculsive to the Nintendo console since the SNES days and not even made by Nintendo) have to do with Nintendo not losing it's edge recently with the GameCube?
I have to say that I think Mario Sunshine is not as good as Mario 64, but other than that the games Nintendo makes for it's own systems are solid, good games. And not only that they're one of the few companies that aren't afraid to take their game franchises in new directions to keep them fresh(e.g Metroid, Mario). While it might not end up as good(Mario Sunshine) it has payed off sometimes(Metroid Prime). That's why Nintendo hasn't lost their edge. They're willing to change the formula in order to give gamers something new.
I hear this argument much. People compare the games from the NES era to today games and say how games aren't as difficult as they once were. Example: compare the difficulty of the original Super Mario Brothers to Mario Sunshine.
But I think alot of people don't realize that back in the NES day the actual content of a game was much smaller. Play an old school NES game in a emulator with a save state feature, it will take you a hour or two at most to finish the game. Compared that with say, Half Life. Even with built in saving the game will take you probably 10-15 hours to complete. There's way much more content( scripted events, puzzles, movies, etc.) in most today's games compared with older games.
Old NES games had to have some "challenge" component to it otherwise it would be beat in a few hours which wouldn't justify it's $50 price tag. Keep in mind I said "challenge" because many old games were challenging in the sense you had to die A LOT by trial and error before you figured how to beat the boss, make the jump, etc. And in the end, video games are about having fun. Challenge might be related to fun but the two neccesarily don't go hand in hand.
Moreover, there are many of videogames out there where the definition of "challenge" is not the same as the dying-over-and-over type of challenge. Think about multiplayer FPS or RTS games. What's more challenging? Playing actual people with a sense of strategy or some dumb AI? What about games whose challenge is more mental(like strategy based games) than based than reaction time based?
Games have a wider variety of genres than they did back in the NES and as such the definition of "challenge" does too. And if all that doesn't convince you, play Contra: Shattered Soldier. It's just as 'hard' as any NES Contra game and it's certainly harder than the Contra III.