Well, as long as you don't mind letting windows automatically update itself. Otherwise, you'll need IE in order to use the Windows Update site. Unless of course, there's something I don't know about.
Also, the automatic updater ony gets critical updates, and in a lot of cases you want to get the non-critical ones as well, which you'll need to manually go to the site for. So really there's two uses. 1. Downloading Firefox or Opera. 2. Windows Updates
It seems to me that he was implying that the danger would apply to anything. I was pointing out that we already administer controlled infections, so it would be worth studying the effects on pregnant women, or more realistically, rats.
I'm not suggesting purposely infecting pregnant women during the research. That would come after it's proven safe and useful. You would just have them report what sicknesses they naturally became infected with during the pregnancy and then attempt to discover what effects it had on the child. Obviously, you'd need a large sample, and there'd be no control group, so naturally, you'd do a lot of the testing on rats. Just as they've done in TFA.
And last I heard, the chance of Chickenpox being severe and/or life threatening increases with a person's age.
Also, what do you think flu vaccines are? Hell, even the Chickenpox vaccine? They're controlled infections, yes?
No, that would make her Spider-Woman, and my embryo would split into about a thousand embryos, and she would lay us in sack in the corner until we hatched. Then I would be one of a thousand Spider-Men. Let's see Doc Oc or the Green Goblin fight off THAT.
Clearly I have no basis, other than the fact that things do get passed between the mother's and baby's blood via the placenta. And obviously you wouldn't want to infect the mother with anything that would be harmful to the child, hence the non-fatal/non-life-threatening part. I just think someone (obviously not me) should do some serious research on this. But, like I said, it could be complete BS.
This is based mostly on BS, but interesting (at least to me) nonetheless...
When my mom was pregnant with me, at some point she had a bad case of poison ivy. I rarely ever get poison ivy, and if I do, it's only for a couple days, and is hardly noticable. My older sister on the other hand, is quite allergic to poison ivy, and generally needs medication to control it if she gets it. I've also heard of similar stories, but can't be arsed right now to remember them. Now, we all know that a baby's immune system is related to how good the mother's immune system is. I postulate that if a pregnant woman becomes infected with any sort of non-fatal/non-life-threating disease, bacteria, virus, the baby will, as a result, be more resistant to it, if not totally immune.
So, instead of isolating pregnant women from everything, I say we start giving them controlled infections of common sicknesses, so that their immune systems produce the atibodies, and pass them on to the baby.
There is nothing we don't already know in TFA other than that it's available for pre-order. Also note that the pre-order package includes three games. There has to be something more (can't look at the actual offer as I'm at work) to justify the £125($235) difference. Unless of course the games are £42($79) each. Of course, they're probably counting the VAT in there, so maybe it is just the three games. Still... damn expensive.
Agreed. I run XP under the Windows Classic theme. I turn most of the graphical "features" off, except for the few things that I actually like (like shadows, tranparent icon labels, etc.) and even turn off a lot of the services that I don't use, and in most cases, don't want running because they're a big security hole (Remote Registry, anyone?). When I get Vista, which probably won't be for a long time (probably until after the first service pack is out), I'll still be running it with most of that crap turned off. I don't need it eating resources when I'm trying to watch por... er... play hent.... er... run 20 programs at once.
My point was that the graphics for a console at release aren't really indicative of what the console can really do, not that the graphics on the GC are better than the PS2 (Though, in most cases that I've seen, the GC's graphics are just as good or better. And feel free to disagree with me on this. That's your right/opinion). This is especially irrelevant when the final specs of the Wii are not known.
I wonder if anyone over 21 actually wants the wand controller.
I'm over 21 and am itching to play with it. So are a lot of my over 21 friends. Even my completely non-gamer girlfriend (ZOMGWTFBBQ someone on/. has a girlfriend!!!11one) is psyched to play with a Wii (preferrably mine, pun intended).
Still all that repetitive motion isn't like DDR -- people can dance longer than they can wiggle a remote constantly.
And people can wiggle a remote longer than they can push joysticks and buttons. DDR is also a single game, whereas the remote will be used for a wide variety of games. Really, we're just trading one repetative motion for another.
You have to at least pretend to be a responsible journalist, or YOU become a tabloid rag yourself.
Very true. However, I see this sort of thing on NEARLY EVERY article Zonk posts. Yes, some of them are crap. Again, I see the same thing everywhere else. I just think people expect an unreasonable lack of bias. Sure he posts a lot of anti-Sony articles. But, then again, they are doing a lot of dumb stuff lately. Really, anything you didn't see or hear from the original source with your own eyes and ears should be taken with a grain of salt. This should be common knowledge.
The Xbox 360 doesn't seem to be doing that well in any territory actually. You should really look at the numbers, and it's not just a production problem. In fact Ars recently had an article that dicussed this.
I don't think I mentioned this at all. In fact I totally agree with you. I think the only reason I even mentioned Microsoft was to point out the fact that the parent was a Sony fanboy.
Yeah, Sony is really screwing up...just ask any Xbox fanboy - like, oh, Zonk!
Yeah, Microsoft and Nintendo are really screwing up... just ask any Sony fanboy - like, oh, YOU.
Half of the points you made are irrelevant until the consoles have actually been out for a couple years. Look at the first few titles for the GC, and then at the ones that have been coming out recently. MUCH improvement. Personally, I'm not really seeing that with the PS2. In fact, I'm seeing GC games that look better than PS2 games. And your 8000+ backcatalog points.... you've apparently forgot about the Wii's backcatalog of NES, SNES, N64, GC, Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16 games. I'm betting on them announcing even more before or shortly after release. Also, does anyone really expect the PS3 to be completely, flawlessly backward compatible?
Really, I'm just sick of hearing about any of this. And of people giving Zonk and the other editors crap about being biased. THEY'RE EDITORS. THAT'S WHAT EDITORS DO. Have you ever read a newspaper? Most of them have some sort of bias in the articles. Why do you expect it to be any different here?
Which gimmicky controller? The Wii-mote or the DualShake? And have you actually played either one of them enough for the controller to get old? And if so, are you sure you don't just suck at using it and therefore get bored with it? Actually, I can understand how the DualShake would get old pretty quick, since the basic design has been around since, oh, I dunno, the PS1.
Also, how about some links to back up your claims about 360s sitting on the shelves? The last time I was at Best Buy there wasn't a 360 in sight.
I really wish people would take a tech writing course so that they would learn how to substantially back up their claims in arguments.
What is the PS3 but a beefed up PS2 minus DualShock, plus DualShake and Blu-ray?
What is the Xbox 360 but a beefed up Xbox?
I think you're missing the entire point of the Wii. Different and/or better gameplay. BUT OMG IT DOESN'T SUPPORT HD!!1one You're also forgetting the fact that the final specs haven't been released yet, only that they're based off the GC hardware. Big deal. Any argument about the Wii being less powerful is meaningless until we know the final specs.
I agree with you entirely. Well... almost. I think hardcore gamers who grew up/started out on pre-ps1 systems have a greater appreciation for the games, what they were, what they've become, and so on. I also think that being a hardcore gamer took a lot more effort and dedication back in the day than it does now. Sure the newer games are more immersive, but that makes it easier to play them for hours on end. I remember playing Tetris and Super Mario Brothers on my original GameBoy until my arms were too tired to hold the thing up, my thumbs were bruised, and my vision was blurred. Old school hardcore gamers are, IMO, more hardcore than todays hardcore gamers. Sure I can sit down and play Rise of Nations for hours and hours, but imagine doing something similar on a system with a totally non-ergonomic controller, 16 bit color, and a painfully slow framerate. How many of todays hardcore gamers would be able to do it?
We could just start enforcing the ESRB ratings. If the rating is high enough, require the cashier to verify a state issued ID. Possibly even input the ID number into register, and print it on the reciept, and not proceed with the transaction until one has been entered. Hell, if you wanted to get really crazy, hook it up to the BMV database, and verify that it's a valid ID, and that the age on it is high enough to purchase the game. Do we really need a such a generalized, at-the-mercy-of-the-general(stupid)-public, do-your-parenting-for-you, target-any-specific-game, idiotic law?
I think we need to redefine what a "hardcore gamer" is. I think I've said this before, but the widely accepted definition, is IMHO, wrong. A hardcore gamer is NOT someone who plays FPS's and war simulations. A hardcore gamer IS someone who either excells at nearly any type/genre of game and/or plays games for hours on end. You don't necessarily have to play intense, fast paced games to be a hardcore gamer. Also, if you've never played any console older than the original playstation, you are not hardcore. You've not endured enough slow framerates and flashing-induced headaches (Gunstar Heroes on the Genesis, anyone?) to be considered hardcore. Sorry.
As an aside, and perhaps a suggestion for your friend.... I got my ex hooked on Phantasy Star Online. You can play cooperatively, the graphics are ok, and it's still a shooting/fighting type of game. She liked it because even though I was still a bazillion times better at it than her, I wasn't killing her specifically, and it wasn't too fast paced. She had time to stop and think. And if she got in a pinch, I was always there to back her up.
You need to bring younger viewers back if you want to keep making money. To do that, you need to embrace non-traditional sports. They did it with snowboarding - and look how the popularity of that has surged in the Games
Ok, I agree. But what about the sports that we see on the X-Games? I'd much rather watch skateboarding, BMX, or motocross than people playing video games. I enjoy gaming as much as the next nerd, but watching someone else play is just not fun. Watching someone faceplant on some stairs or rack themself on a rail is much more entertaining.
This would be really cool to implement in prosthetics. How awesome would it be to get a robotic arm that functioned just like your real arm that got ripped off by another robot when it's AI went nutso instead of a flesh colored piece of plastic?
Just following the assumed general consensus. Even though I have a particular view of what 'hardcore' might mean, and however correct I may be, people are still are not going to see the Wii as being a 'hardcore' system. I'm also making a slight jab at the people who think that way. But we've gone a bit offtopic here. Let's move along.
That's why I put it in quotes. It means too many different things to too many different people. Personally, I consider a 'hardcore' gamer to be someone that plays games almost constantly and excels at most games they play. Not someone who plays ZOMGHALO all the time, per the seemingly more common definition. To me a 'hardcore' gamer could just as easily play Tetris for hours on end as they could play Halflife 2 or WoW.
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Well, as long as you don't mind letting windows automatically update itself. Otherwise, you'll need IE in order to use the Windows Update site. Unless of course, there's something I don't know about.
Also, the automatic updater ony gets critical updates, and in a lot of cases you want to get the non-critical ones as well, which you'll need to manually go to the site for. So really there's two uses. 1. Downloading Firefox or Opera. 2. Windows Updates
It seems to me that he was implying that the danger would apply to anything. I was pointing out that we already administer controlled infections, so it would be worth studying the effects on pregnant women, or more realistically, rats.
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I prefer to straddle it. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
I'm not suggesting purposely infecting pregnant women during the research. That would come after it's proven safe and useful. You would just have them report what sicknesses they naturally became infected with during the pregnancy and then attempt to discover what effects it had on the child. Obviously, you'd need a large sample, and there'd be no control group, so naturally, you'd do a lot of the testing on rats. Just as they've done in TFA.
And last I heard, the chance of Chickenpox being severe and/or life threatening increases with a person's age.
Also, what do you think flu vaccines are? Hell, even the Chickenpox vaccine? They're controlled infections, yes?
No, that would make her Spider-Woman, and my embryo would split into about a thousand embryos, and she would lay us in sack in the corner until we hatched. Then I would be one of a thousand Spider-Men. Let's see Doc Oc or the Green Goblin fight off THAT.
Clearly I have no basis, other than the fact that things do get passed between the mother's and baby's blood via the placenta. And obviously you wouldn't want to infect the mother with anything that would be harmful to the child, hence the non-fatal/non-life-threatening part. I just think someone (obviously not me) should do some serious research on this. But, like I said, it could be complete BS.
This is based mostly on BS, but interesting (at least to me) nonetheless...
When my mom was pregnant with me, at some point she had a bad case of poison ivy. I rarely ever get poison ivy, and if I do, it's only for a couple days, and is hardly noticable. My older sister on the other hand, is quite allergic to poison ivy, and generally needs medication to control it if she gets it. I've also heard of similar stories, but can't be arsed right now to remember them. Now, we all know that a baby's immune system is related to how good the mother's immune system is. I postulate that if a pregnant woman becomes infected with any sort of non-fatal/non-life-threating disease, bacteria, virus, the baby will, as a result, be more resistant to it, if not totally immune.
So, instead of isolating pregnant women from everything, I say we start giving them controlled infections of common sicknesses, so that their immune systems produce the atibodies, and pass them on to the baby.
Of course, I could just be completely insane....
There is nothing we don't already know in TFA other than that it's available for pre-order. Also note that the pre-order package includes three games. There has to be something more (can't look at the actual offer as I'm at work) to justify the £125($235) difference. Unless of course the games are £42($79) each. Of course, they're probably counting the VAT in there, so maybe it is just the three games. Still... damn expensive.
Agreed. I run XP under the Windows Classic theme. I turn most of the graphical "features" off, except for the few things that I actually like (like shadows, tranparent icon labels, etc.) and even turn off a lot of the services that I don't use, and in most cases, don't want running because they're a big security hole (Remote Registry, anyone?). When I get Vista, which probably won't be for a long time (probably until after the first service pack is out), I'll still be running it with most of that crap turned off. I don't need it eating resources when I'm trying to watch por... er... play hent.... er... run 20 programs at once.
To quote a bit of Avenue Q: "Why you think the 'Net was born? Porn, porn, porn."
Wouldn't mini negate massively and make it simply MORPG?
I'm over 21 and am itching to play with it. So are a lot of my over 21 friends. Even my completely non-gamer girlfriend (ZOMGWTFBBQ someone on
And people can wiggle a remote longer than they can push joysticks and buttons. DDR is also a single game, whereas the remote will be used for a wide variety of games. Really, we're just trading one repetative motion for another.
Very true. However, I see this sort of thing on NEARLY EVERY article Zonk posts. Yes, some of them are crap. Again, I see the same thing everywhere else. I just think people expect an unreasonable lack of bias. Sure he posts a lot of anti-Sony articles. But, then again, they are doing a lot of dumb stuff lately. Really, anything you didn't see or hear from the original source with your own eyes and ears should be taken with a grain of salt. This should be common knowledge.
I don't think I mentioned this at all. In fact I totally agree with you. I think the only reason I even mentioned Microsoft was to point out the fact that the parent was a Sony fanboy.
Half of the points you made are irrelevant until the consoles have actually been out for a couple years. Look at the first few titles for the GC, and then at the ones that have been coming out recently. MUCH improvement. Personally, I'm not really seeing that with the PS2. In fact, I'm seeing GC games that look better than PS2 games. And your 8000+ backcatalog points.... you've apparently forgot about the Wii's backcatalog of NES, SNES, N64, GC, Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16 games. I'm betting on them announcing even more before or shortly after release. Also, does anyone really expect the PS3 to be completely, flawlessly backward compatible?
Really, I'm just sick of hearing about any of this. And of people giving Zonk and the other editors crap about being biased. THEY'RE EDITORS. THAT'S WHAT EDITORS DO. Have you ever read a newspaper? Most of them have some sort of bias in the articles. Why do you expect it to be any different here?
Also, how about some links to back up your claims about 360s sitting on the shelves? The last time I was at Best Buy there wasn't a 360 in sight.
I really wish people would take a tech writing course so that they would learn how to substantially back up their claims in arguments.
Least impressive of the three? Think again.
What is the PS3 but a beefed up PS2 minus DualShock, plus DualShake and Blu-ray?
What is the Xbox 360 but a beefed up Xbox?
I think you're missing the entire point of the Wii. Different and/or better gameplay. BUT OMG IT DOESN'T SUPPORT HD!!1one You're also forgetting the fact that the final specs haven't been released yet, only that they're based off the GC hardware. Big deal. Any argument about the Wii being less powerful is meaningless until we know the final specs.
I agree with you entirely. Well... almost. I think hardcore gamers who grew up/started out on pre-ps1 systems have a greater appreciation for the games, what they were, what they've become, and so on. I also think that being a hardcore gamer took a lot more effort and dedication back in the day than it does now. Sure the newer games are more immersive, but that makes it easier to play them for hours on end. I remember playing Tetris and Super Mario Brothers on my original GameBoy until my arms were too tired to hold the thing up, my thumbs were bruised, and my vision was blurred. Old school hardcore gamers are, IMO, more hardcore than todays hardcore gamers. Sure I can sit down and play Rise of Nations for hours and hours, but imagine doing something similar on a system with a totally non-ergonomic controller, 16 bit color, and a painfully slow framerate. How many of todays hardcore gamers would be able to do it?
We could just start enforcing the ESRB ratings. If the rating is high enough, require the cashier to verify a state issued ID. Possibly even input the ID number into register, and print it on the reciept, and not proceed with the transaction until one has been entered. Hell, if you wanted to get really crazy, hook it up to the BMV database, and verify that it's a valid ID, and that the age on it is high enough to purchase the game. Do we really need a such a generalized, at-the-mercy-of-the-general(stupid)-public, do-your-parenting-for-you, target-any-specific-game, idiotic law?
I think we need to redefine what a "hardcore gamer" is. I think I've said this before, but the widely accepted definition, is IMHO, wrong. A hardcore gamer is NOT someone who plays FPS's and war simulations. A hardcore gamer IS someone who either excells at nearly any type/genre of game and/or plays games for hours on end. You don't necessarily have to play intense, fast paced games to be a hardcore gamer. Also, if you've never played any console older than the original playstation, you are not hardcore. You've not endured enough slow framerates and flashing-induced headaches (Gunstar Heroes on the Genesis, anyone?) to be considered hardcore. Sorry. As an aside, and perhaps a suggestion for your friend.... I got my ex hooked on Phantasy Star Online. You can play cooperatively, the graphics are ok, and it's still a shooting/fighting type of game. She liked it because even though I was still a bazillion times better at it than her, I wasn't killing her specifically, and it wasn't too fast paced. She had time to stop and think. And if she got in a pinch, I was always there to back her up.
I think you've forgotten what the guys on the weight lifting teams look like. Granted, the slobs you're talking about can't bench press a car....
What? And Nintendo doesn't?
This would be really cool to implement in prosthetics. How awesome would it be to get a robotic arm that functioned just like your real arm that got ripped off by another robot when it's AI went nutso instead of a flesh colored piece of plastic?
I think the point he's trying to make is that Nintendo is trying to change that.
Just following the assumed general consensus. Even though I have a particular view of what 'hardcore' might mean, and however correct I may be, people are still are not going to see the Wii as being a 'hardcore' system. I'm also making a slight jab at the people who think that way. But we've gone a bit offtopic here. Let's move along.
That's why I put it in quotes. It means too many different things to too many different people. Personally, I consider a 'hardcore' gamer to be someone that plays games almost constantly and excels at most games they play. Not someone who plays ZOMGHALO all the time, per the seemingly more common definition. To me a 'hardcore' gamer could just as easily play Tetris for hours on end as they could play Halflife 2 or WoW.