Not everything can go "to the cloud". The time when people will have nothing else but a large screen and a collection of virtual data sets instead of books, movies, games won't come. People like to own things, there's a materialist in every one of us more or less eagerly amassing personal treasures.
I'm hopeful retrogaming's popularity will continue to increase. There's something more in retrogaming than just nostalgia, something that could be also linked to the tremendous success of the Nintendo DS. It's the simplicity, the attractiveness and efficiency of straightforward 2D gameplay with clear 2D graphics. The 360 and the PS3 haven't been unanimously adopted so far; it's because technological achievement isn't everything, people don't buy new games like they buy new computers, based on the performance, systematically discarding the previous machine and never looking back.
Diversity is one of gaming's strength and what comes with the term "retrogaming" is so very different from the modern offering that it possesses a unique appeal and significant assets. Retrogaming is one aspect or category of something broader, that could be defined (and let me coin the word because I plan to reuse it!) as "lightgaming", which has its own rules too, one of which being that the prevalent technology is not a driving force anymore.
To be able to pierce holes in the font, they had to thicken it by making it bold, hence use more ink. This just defeats the whole purpose. Really stupid!
Warning: Nintendo might screw you in the long run
on
Club Nintendo Goes Live
·
· Score: 2, Informative
That's not entirely true. There are many interesting prizes, such as games, which are still available, but the problem is that they cost an awful lot of points. Here's the top items that you can buy at the moment in the European Club Nintendo 's Stars Catalogue with their sale price in points:
Gold-like statuette of Link riding Epona [15.000]
DS cases brown (sold out) / pink [5.500]
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising GBA (sold out)[5.000]
Metroid: Zero Mission [5.000]
DS Lite Value Pack (Super Mario) [5.000]
Mario Power Tennis [5.000]
Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (sold out)[5.000]
Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack - platinum edition [4.850]
There are many fashion accessories and cute gadgets among the less expensive items; you can also turn your star points into Wii points.
I registered 10 GameCube games since I joined and barely earned 4000 points. I haven't bought games since then and Nintendo did something that is certainly not going to encourage me to change that: this year, they decided that some games people have registered are now too old! So they withdrew the points from our totals, just like that! For me that's 2800 points vaporized. And they plan to do that every year. Imagine if your banker decided that some of the money you have on your account come from salaries that go back too far in time and just took the money away. I feel that's what Nintendo did. You don't take back what you give, that's plain stealing. Besides, this new system favours kids who can spend a lot of money in games and doesn't reward other patient loyal fans. That really didn't help improve the rather negative image that I've been having of Nintendo lately.
So watch out for Nintendo's nasty tricks in the US too!
And replaced by what, please? It's marvelous you can haughtily proclaim PHP is worthless but that'd be more convincing (and sane) if you had told what other language could have done a better job in easily developping web pages for the past 10 years.
That just proves you're not a pedophile, not that it could not excite one.
Artistically, I think it's a great cover. Sure, it is contentious, prone to disturb, but that it gets labelled as "child porn" or ends up on some worst album covers lists just shows how prejudicial and narrow-minded some people are. They won't get past the fact it involves a nude child, which, in their mind, invariably means it's the work of a filthy pedophile for the sole enjoyment of other pedophiles. But evil is in the eye of the beholder, and what they see is not what the cover really shows but how they choose to interpret it by looking at it from the nastiest angle.
What's to stop some nut job, with a gun from wandering onto a school campus and shooting a bunch of people?
There's a huge paradox here. Talking about school killings, as far as I know, most of them have happened in countries where it is legal and easy to own a gun (USA, Finland, Canada). It doesn't seem to act much as a deterrent, at least not as much as not to be able to get a weapon at all. Besides, following your logic, the right to bear arms should have protected people better, but it didn't because you're not allowed to carry arms at school and, possibly, in some other public places too. So what's your solution here? Everyone should be encouraged to carry arms at all times to protect himself or herself better like in the Old West? Do you think, if that was the case, if everyone was carrying guns, that you would all be protected better and that the number of crimes would magically drop? Or wouldn't the number shoot skyward?
At the time of the release of Bowling for Columbine, there was a pamphlet circulating in the theaters with a theory about this obsession of carrying guns (might be also mentionned in the movie, I don't remember). Basically, what it said, is that it was all based on fear, a legacy of fear that indeed goes back to a time when people had guns to protect themselves against indians, slaves, outlaws.
Your main argument being all along the fear of being killed, that assumption seems correct. It is a rightful fear of course because in the US you have a long history of civil violence, but the problem is that you fail to see the connection between that violence and the right to bear arms. You can only think of that "man, somewhere out there, who might kill" as a reason to have a gun, not as the flaw in your peace of mind drawing its strength from the second amendment.
Not everyone would turn in their weapons, and even if they did, that wouldn't put an end to crimes, innocent people would continue to get murdered; well, all that is obvious. As a nation which has always lived with guns, it would take a very long time and tremendous efforts before you can all learn to live in a society free of weapons and see the benefits of it.
As for the original topic... that's a preposterous and dangerous idea. Between old people who would accidentally shoot someone, shoot the wrong person, or even shoot themselves (be it a suicide or an accident), taking also into account potential criminals who could take advantage of the weapon's harmless look, there's a lot of possibilities that it goes totally wrong. Why not making real guns for children too? Like this they could protect themselves against abusers and molesters of all kind. Guns for everyone!
While talking about cartoons, Japanese did it too with Bumpety Boo / Boumbo. You can't miss the nose on that car's face. Sanrio event put a face on the Shinkansen (the bullet train).
Of course that's fascinating, but what would they do with a mammoth? Polar bears are becoming endangered because of rising temperatures and mammoths have disappeared, supposedly because the climate was too warm. They'll have to build a large freezer to keep the beast alive--Jurassic Park meets Frosty the Snowman--or they might not find a place cold enough on Earth for that purpose.
I wonder if this is so off-topic. I can't reach YouTube either at all. Perhaps that has something to do with this announcement? Maybe they're rolling in enhancements or a new version. It would be quite a coincidence if the site went down just the day they're supposed to introduce that MGM deal.
Are there really no games where the goal isn't so much about increasing your own power and defeating others...
Competition and winning is what sport games are all about so that should rule them out (besides if he didn't think by himself of trying out sport games before...).
Are there really no games where the goal isn't so much about increasing your own power and defeating others, but where you instead grow by doing things that benefit others, where enemies shouldn't be killed out of hand, but befriended; where learning, teaching, research and social skills are more important than killing and conquering?
It's not a game you need, it's to work for a NPO. Past a certain point, real life's challenges might meet your expectations better than virtual ones. Or maybe try dating simulations! There's a lot of befriending going on.
Google Group seems boring, not really Google's fault but whenever I browse a topic, I never find anything relevant. Maybe bad luck. Anyway, for code samples, why not using Google Code Search? You can limit your search to specific languages, which is very convenient.
The gameplay is basic, and without a storyline no one would play it for 5 seconds.
But you are still playing, you're admitting it yourself. I didn't say it was just a matter of gameplay, I talked about interaction, that's different. I didn't say either games can't deliver a storyline. Besides, this is getting off-topic, re-read what the original poster asked for: "profound concepts", this is beyond adventure game plots. I doubt Hotel Dusk and Trace Memory, even turned into novels, would give him the intellectual kick he's after.
Just one more thing, while re-reading your message.
...are also meant to provide entertainment, but many also provide deep subject matter and tough issues for humanity
This is where you're wrong, books/movies, even music, are not meant to provide entertainment, this is just a possibility among others, a consequence of their broader scope.
Because by definition books and movies are not games, as simple as that. Sure their content can entertain but that does not make them games, you don't "play" with movies or books unless you're 1 year old. But then you play with anything, even with your food and your wee-wee (hopefully not at the same time).
With games you have to interact and that interaction is supposed to produce fun and pleasure. If you change that basic principle, would it be still a game? Good video games are interesting if they are fun to play, good books and movies don't need to be fun to be interesting.
profound concepts, to learn of new paradigms, processes, and possibilities... So what exactly are the barriers of entry for great thinkers (or groups of thinkers) to leave their mark on games?
Just the way this is worded sounds awfully pedantic and is borderline shoddy intellectuliasm. Video games are meant to be played, yes, like children playing with their toys. I'm sorry if the analogy is unbearable for some adults who look back with contempt at their childhood's leisures but the aim of games is to provide fun, entertainment, so until this is redefined, whoever needs to have "deep" thinking trips would be best advise to discuss with academics or read books written by them on philosophy, metaphysics, or whatever rocks his vessel.
However, I would also have to disagree with the "mindless fun" designation. Like in every media/art, there are many different types of games that require various skills and inclinations. From strategy games to puzzle games, there are plenty of titles that test the sharpness of your mental faculties. And if it's not the treat humanists are looking for, there's still the option to analyze the current games offering rather than expecting them to offer you food for the brains in a conspicuous package. What I mean by that is that some games may already propose deeper themes and topics and material for debates and thinking, all you need is just to look for them, look beyond the gameplay, this is one way to explore games with a more adult view and it's certainly better than expecting them to serve pompous content with a Plato Seal of Quality.
So many comments have been posted (2492!?) that some script goes buggy on Firefox (2).
Anyway, I was thrilled today to learn Obama won the election. This is fantastic! Congratulations to the United States for making this choice, congratulations also for electing your first black president. Somehow, after all what black Americans have been through, this feels like a beautiful historical moment.
At least he's no Nintendo fanboy, he still has some critical sense left. And it's indeed interesting he's criticizing a little Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy, both of which have been hugely successful in the press, especially Mario (highest-scored Wii game in most websites).
I just hope I'm understanding his remark correctly... that he's not actually thinking those two games should have been more similar in spirit to Wii Sports/Fit/Music. Because when you come to think of it, he's quite enthusiastic about those shallow titles.
When people go to virtual worlds, I don't think they want to be harassed by the same kind of advertising they have to suffer in the real world. That second coming will be more like a crucifixion if businesses think they can turn them into a giant money-raking playground. The only way it could work is if you could beat the crap out of the avatars of people who designed/sold bad products; a new approach to customer care!
Critics are maybe raving about it but it doesn't seem gamers are all too excited or interested in the game. Could it be a future commercial flop? Any numbers yet, sales or pre-orders?
Slashdot Mirror
Not everything can go "to the cloud". The time when people will have nothing else but a large screen and a collection of virtual data sets instead of books, movies, games won't come. People like to own things, there's a materialist in every one of us more or less eagerly amassing personal treasures.
I'm hopeful retrogaming's popularity will continue to increase. There's something more in retrogaming than just nostalgia, something that could be also linked to the tremendous success of the Nintendo DS. It's the simplicity, the attractiveness and efficiency of straightforward 2D gameplay with clear 2D graphics. The 360 and the PS3 haven't been unanimously adopted so far; it's because technological achievement isn't everything, people don't buy new games like they buy new computers, based on the performance, systematically discarding the previous machine and never looking back.
Diversity is one of gaming's strength and what comes with the term "retrogaming" is so very different from the modern offering that it possesses a unique appeal and significant assets. Retrogaming is one aspect or category of something broader, that could be defined (and let me coin the word because I plan to reuse it!) as "lightgaming", which has its own rules too, one of which being that the prevalent technology is not a driving force anymore.
To be able to pierce holes in the font, they had to thicken it by making it bold, hence use more ink. This just defeats the whole purpose. Really stupid!
That's not entirely true. There are many interesting prizes, such as games, which are still available, but the problem is that they cost an awful lot of points. Here's the top items that you can buy at the moment in the European Club Nintendo 's Stars Catalogue with their sale price in points:
There are many fashion accessories and cute gadgets among the less expensive items; you can also turn your star points into Wii points.
I registered 10 GameCube games since I joined and barely earned 4000 points. I haven't bought games since then and Nintendo did something that is certainly not going to encourage me to change that: this year, they decided that some games people have registered are now too old! So they withdrew the points from our totals, just like that! For me that's 2800 points vaporized. And they plan to do that every year. Imagine if your banker decided that some of the money you have on your account come from salaries that go back too far in time and just took the money away. I feel that's what Nintendo did. You don't take back what you give, that's plain stealing. Besides, this new system favours kids who can spend a lot of money in games and doesn't reward other patient loyal fans. That really didn't help improve the rather negative image that I've been having of Nintendo lately.
So watch out for Nintendo's nasty tricks in the US too!
And replaced by what, please? It's marvelous you can haughtily proclaim PHP is worthless but that'd be more convincing (and sane) if you had told what other language could have done a better job in easily developping web pages for the past 10 years.
That just proves you're not a pedophile, not that it could not excite one.
Artistically, I think it's a great cover. Sure, it is contentious, prone to disturb, but that it gets labelled as "child porn" or ends up on some worst album covers lists just shows how prejudicial and narrow-minded some people are. They won't get past the fact it involves a nude child, which, in their mind, invariably means it's the work of a filthy pedophile for the sole enjoyment of other pedophiles. But evil is in the eye of the beholder, and what they see is not what the cover really shows but how they choose to interpret it by looking at it from the nastiest angle.
There's a huge paradox here. Talking about school killings, as far as I know, most of them have happened in countries where it is legal and easy to own a gun (USA, Finland, Canada). It doesn't seem to act much as a deterrent, at least not as much as not to be able to get a weapon at all. Besides, following your logic, the right to bear arms should have protected people better, but it didn't because you're not allowed to carry arms at school and, possibly, in some other public places too. So what's your solution here? Everyone should be encouraged to carry arms at all times to protect himself or herself better like in the Old West? Do you think, if that was the case, if everyone was carrying guns, that you would all be protected better and that the number of crimes would magically drop? Or wouldn't the number shoot skyward?
At the time of the release of Bowling for Columbine, there was a pamphlet circulating in the theaters with a theory about this obsession of carrying guns (might be also mentionned in the movie, I don't remember). Basically, what it said, is that it was all based on fear, a legacy of fear that indeed goes back to a time when people had guns to protect themselves against indians, slaves, outlaws.
Your main argument being all along the fear of being killed, that assumption seems correct. It is a rightful fear of course because in the US you have a long history of civil violence, but the problem is that you fail to see the connection between that violence and the right to bear arms. You can only think of that "man, somewhere out there, who might kill" as a reason to have a gun, not as the flaw in your peace of mind drawing its strength from the second amendment.
Not everyone would turn in their weapons, and even if they did, that wouldn't put an end to crimes, innocent people would continue to get murdered; well, all that is obvious. As a nation which has always lived with guns, it would take a very long time and tremendous efforts before you can all learn to live in a society free of weapons and see the benefits of it.
As for the original topic... that's a preposterous and dangerous idea. Between old people who would accidentally shoot someone, shoot the wrong person, or even shoot themselves (be it a suicide or an accident), taking also into account potential criminals who could take advantage of the weapon's harmless look, there's a lot of possibilities that it goes totally wrong. Why not making real guns for children too? Like this they could protect themselves against abusers and molesters of all kind. Guns for everyone!
While talking about cartoons, Japanese did it too with Bumpety Boo / Boumbo. You can't miss the nose on that car's face. Sanrio event put a face on the Shinkansen (the bullet train).
No study needed to confirm some people like posting malicious comments.
Of course that's fascinating, but what would they do with a mammoth? Polar bears are becoming endangered because of rising temperatures and mammoths have disappeared, supposedly because the climate was too warm. They'll have to build a large freezer to keep the beast alive--Jurassic Park meets Frosty the Snowman--or they might not find a place cold enough on Earth for that purpose.
What about the Dodo? Any bits left?
That's a strange coincidence they're talking about this JP-like experiment a few weeks after Michael Crichton's death. Posthumous humour?
Yes, that was a lack of attention on my part. I am sorry for the resulting awkwardness.
My bad, sorry! I should have proofread my submission more carefully.
Oddly, this announcement does not appear on the front page of the Google Blog. Maybe they want a quiet exit, or is it just a cache problem on my side?
"Your search did not match any documents."
I wonder if this is so off-topic. I can't reach YouTube either at all. Perhaps that has something to do with this announcement? Maybe they're rolling in enhancements or a new version. It would be quite a coincidence if the site went down just the day they're supposed to introduce that MGM deal.
Probably not... look at his criteria again:
Competition and winning is what sport games are all about so that should rule them out (besides if he didn't think by himself of trying out sport games before...).
It's not a game you need, it's to work for a NPO. Past a certain point, real life's challenges might meet your expectations better than virtual ones. Or maybe try dating simulations! There's a lot of befriending going on.
Google Group seems boring, not really Google's fault but whenever I browse a topic, I never find anything relevant. Maybe bad luck. Anyway, for code samples, why not using Google Code Search? You can limit your search to specific languages, which is very convenient.
But you are still playing, you're admitting it yourself. I didn't say it was just a matter of gameplay, I talked about interaction, that's different. I didn't say either games can't deliver a storyline. Besides, this is getting off-topic, re-read what the original poster asked for: "profound concepts", this is beyond adventure game plots. I doubt Hotel Dusk and Trace Memory, even turned into novels, would give him the intellectual kick he's after.
Just one more thing, while re-reading your message.
This is where you're wrong, books/movies, even music, are not meant to provide entertainment, this is just a possibility among others, a consequence of their broader scope.
Because by definition books and movies are not games, as simple as that. Sure their content can entertain but that does not make them games, you don't "play" with movies or books unless you're 1 year old. But then you play with anything, even with your food and your wee-wee (hopefully not at the same time).
With games you have to interact and that interaction is supposed to produce fun and pleasure. If you change that basic principle, would it be still a game? Good video games are interesting if they are fun to play, good books and movies don't need to be fun to be interesting.
Just the way this is worded sounds awfully pedantic and is borderline shoddy intellectuliasm. Video games are meant to be played, yes, like children playing with their toys. I'm sorry if the analogy is unbearable for some adults who look back with contempt at their childhood's leisures but the aim of games is to provide fun, entertainment, so until this is redefined, whoever needs to have "deep" thinking trips would be best advise to discuss with academics or read books written by them on philosophy, metaphysics, or whatever rocks his vessel.
However, I would also have to disagree with the "mindless fun" designation. Like in every media/art, there are many different types of games that require various skills and inclinations. From strategy games to puzzle games, there are plenty of titles that test the sharpness of your mental faculties. And if it's not the treat humanists are looking for, there's still the option to analyze the current games offering rather than expecting them to offer you food for the brains in a conspicuous package. What I mean by that is that some games may already propose deeper themes and topics and material for debates and thinking, all you need is just to look for them, look beyond the gameplay, this is one way to explore games with a more adult view and it's certainly better than expecting them to serve pompous content with a Plato Seal of Quality.
So many comments have been posted (2492!?) that some script goes buggy on Firefox (2).
Anyway, I was thrilled today to learn Obama won the election. This is fantastic! Congratulations to the United States for making this choice, congratulations also for electing your first black president. Somehow, after all what black Americans have been through, this feels like a beautiful historical moment.
At least he's no Nintendo fanboy, he still has some critical sense left. And it's indeed interesting he's criticizing a little Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy, both of which have been hugely successful in the press, especially Mario (highest-scored Wii game in most websites).
I just hope I'm understanding his remark correctly... that he's not actually thinking those two games should have been more similar in spirit to Wii Sports/Fit/Music. Because when you come to think of it, he's quite enthusiastic about those shallow titles.
When people go to virtual worlds, I don't think they want to be harassed by the same kind of advertising they have to suffer in the real world. That second coming will be more like a crucifixion if businesses think they can turn them into a giant money-raking playground. The only way it could work is if you could beat the crap out of the avatars of people who designed/sold bad products; a new approach to customer care!
Critics are maybe raving about it but it doesn't seem gamers are all too excited or interested in the game. Could it be a future commercial flop? Any numbers yet, sales or pre-orders?