"Flatland" was the first book I thought of (or "of which I thought" for those into prescriptive grammar) when I read the post. Similar to how some stories lead the reader to probe beyond the text, "Flatland" (with it's exploration of the first three physical dimensions) caused me to wonder what a four dimensional being and world might be like and how to perceive it. It makes an interesting venturing into philosophical and religious meanderings beyond the 3D + t ± quanta = world we experience.
I meant to say there are other alternatives such as indie games for the PC. I'd have to agree with the SF Gate article that the Dreamcast is the best bet for the $ to fun ratio (I'd say the Sega Saturn and N64 tie for second), but I'm more of a fan of the pricier Turbo Grafx CD and Turbo Duo.
As for really retro and cheap gaming, Atari Age has ROMs (including homebrews and prototypes) and emulators for the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and Lynx. One of my favorites is a prototype for the 5200 Blaster, which is a rail FPS. I love the giggly square explosions.
When I talked to one of their guys at the Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition, he said Atari was pretty cool with all the attention AtariAge brings to their old systems.
There are so many freeware and shareware games that have been released online by independent developers and programming hobbyists.
The Independent Games Festival is a good start. And to make things easier, there are a many sites and blogs that review indie games and make recommendations: the2bears and Shoot the Core cover shoot-em ups/STGs; Jay is Games handles flash and casual games; and TIGSource (for which I'm an editor), Independent Gaming, and Game Tunnel cover all genres of games. You can expect to find some overlapping, but they each have plenty to search through.
Similarly, the "I wish I hadn't bought this CD" effect is why I've giving up on commercial music (especially mainstream music). I got tired of buying CD albums of which only a fraction of it's tracks were enjoyable and of which I would eventually get tired.
Then I discovered mp3.com (before they sold out), other mp3 hosting sites, and netlabels in the late 90's, and my purchasing of CD's quickly came to and end. Well, almost. I found 4 dronology tracks of the Stars of the Lid at Epitonic and enjoyed the free tracks so much I bought their double-disk Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (the only CD purchase I made in 2005).
My point is that if you want the music industry to change for the better, it might help to give up on their music while exploring all the legally free music distributed online. Downloading copies of their music only shows them there's still a demand for their stale product, which encourages the RIAA to simply try to channel that demand back to CD sales instead of forcing the music industry to evolve and innovate.
As for myself, I've found enough artists and netlabels (and netlabels at the Internet Archive) that freely distribute music only through the Internet (netaudio) that I don't care if the industry fixes itself or not, and I enjoy searching for new sources of netaudio: it's like online treasure hunting. Sure, there's a lot of questionable and non-creative music online, but there's also a greater diversity of music online than there is in stores.
Just like there are good FOSS alternatives to commercial software, there are good netaudio alternatives to commercial music. And if you can't find anything you like there's plenty of free audio software to help you fix that problem, because problems don't fix themselves, and few of those that cause them bother to address their problems as long as they can get away with it.
But if you really want commercial music and need to listen to it before buying it, there are always sites like Napster's that allow you to listen to full albums a limited number of times. Then at least the music industry will know that you didn't buy any tracks or CD's not because you had downloaded free copies but because you didn't like what you heard.
This wouldn't be such a problem if I had neural interfaces that could transmit input and output without having to use my cumbersome body. Early methods would probably only use thought-controlled input, but I want to be truly immersed in games some day buy having it all take place in my mind. If I could have the graphics superimposed over part of my vision, I could play a game or do some other activity on my computer instead of having to day dream while I'm stuck doing tasks that don't require much attention. I'd just have to keep the computer offline; I don't want my mind hacked.
The article suggests "the presumption has always been the more functionality and speed, the better." It has more functionality and speed in conventional upgrades. But it aslo has added, exclusive interface functionality, and it's considerably shorter load times count toward its speed. ^_^
Ever since the NES overtook Atari, game consoles have been designed too much with specs in mind. It worked back then, and the idea was ok for the 90's. But why are game companies relying on the spec mentality of the 80's? I'm glad Nintendo is pushing for change.
HDTV's aren't going to be mainstream for a while, so the 360 and PS3 are overpowered and overpriced for features not needs for most TV's. They're current/past-gen consoles with wasteful upgrades. The innovation of the Wii's game play, however, truly is next-gen. There's finally a system that will bring innovation to all of its games. I don't have to rely on just a handful to individual games to experience unigue game play.
I'm a "dedicated gamer" who's definitely getting a Wii this year. A few years from now and after I can get an affordable HDTV, I might get a PS3 if enough games come out for it that I would actually want but only after a price drop (as a result of the PS3 slim) and only as a used console. But I'm not even go to bother consider an Xbox-anything; M$ has taken too much money from me already. Besides, I already have so many games I have finished of which I can't convince myself to buy a prettier derivative.
My neophilia is not fulfilled by shiny upgrades of the same old thing but by innovation, emergence, and creativity.
I only listen to netaudio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netaudio) on my mp3 player. There are so many hobbyists and artists that are fed up with the music industry that they prefer to share their music for free. There are also those who see netaudio as a means to spread their music to land a deal; still, the music is free. Why bother with sharing or legally downloading generic music when there are musicians willing to share their music and experimentations with sound for free.
When I play a game, it's a work of art. Seriously, I'm creating a dynamic, variable expereince for myself from a set of hardware and software tools. Why should the fact that I intereact with a video game disqualify it as art? I interact with all other forms of art: I adjust the angle and distance with which I view a painting, there is a variety of ways I can tweak and play around an mp3 while listening to it with Winamp, my DVD player has more buttons to control movies than my PS2 and GC combined have to control a game, and I attach meaning to a work's sights and/or sounds further manipulating them beyond the original, raw sensory information I had received.
Physical and mental interaction is true of all art forms. I know that when I write a story, I'm not writing with complete control. The reader will give meaning to my words and create a text different than I had intended and possibly a better one. The reader is creating an experience from the tools I've provided. Such reading is an integral part of the art of writing. Otherwise, they're just meaningless symbols. And if I make a game out of the same story, the story evolves into a more interactive form with more room to explore and more potential for meaning attachment. The story doesn't cease to exist and neither does the fact that it's art. Games simply give more ''authorial control'' to their users than other works of art. In doing so, games are more postmodern than the arts of the past and many of those that are emerging.
Also, video games themselves are syntheses of other art forms. One might be able to argue about how well they are assembled, but even if a work art is produced through undeveloped skills, it doesn't cease to be art. And the parts of games some may claim are non-art (AI, game play) are just as much art as others, since they are representations, alterations, and extensions of reality (human intelligence, movement and physical intaction with objects), which is what art does.
Slashdot Mirror
"Flatland" was the first book I thought of (or "of which I thought" for those into prescriptive grammar) when I read the post. Similar to how some stories lead the reader to probe beyond the text, "Flatland" (with it's exploration of the first three physical dimensions) caused me to wonder what a four dimensional being and world might be like and how to perceive it. It makes an interesting venturing into philosophical and religious meanderings beyond the 3D + t ± quanta = world we experience.
I'm thinking of waiting for the PS3 slim myself.
I meant to say there are other alternatives such as indie games for the PC. I'd have to agree with the SF Gate article that the Dreamcast is the best bet for the $ to fun ratio (I'd say the Sega Saturn and N64 tie for second), but I'm more of a fan of the pricier Turbo Grafx CD and Turbo Duo.
As for really retro and cheap gaming, Atari Age has ROMs (including homebrews and prototypes) and emulators for the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and Lynx. One of my favorites is a prototype for the 5200 Blaster, which is a rail FPS. I love the giggly square explosions.
When I talked to one of their guys at the Oklahoma Video Game Exhibition, he said Atari was pretty cool with all the attention AtariAge brings to their old systems.
There are so many freeware and shareware games that have been released online by independent developers and programming hobbyists.
The Independent Games Festival is a good start. And to make things easier, there are a many sites and blogs that review indie games and make recommendations: the2bears and Shoot the Core cover shoot-em ups/STGs; Jay is Games handles flash and casual games; and TIGSource (for which I'm an editor), Independent Gaming, and Game Tunnel cover all genres of games. You can expect to find some overlapping, but they each have plenty to search through.
Similarly, the "I wish I hadn't bought this CD" effect is why I've giving up on commercial music (especially mainstream music). I got tired of buying CD albums of which only a fraction of it's tracks were enjoyable and of which I would eventually get tired.
Then I discovered mp3.com (before they sold out), other mp3 hosting sites, and netlabels in the late 90's, and my purchasing of CD's quickly came to and end. Well, almost. I found 4 dronology tracks of the Stars of the Lid at Epitonic and enjoyed the free tracks so much I bought their double-disk Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid (the only CD purchase I made in 2005).
My point is that if you want the music industry to change for the better, it might help to give up on their music while exploring all the legally free music distributed online. Downloading copies of their music only shows them there's still a demand for their stale product, which encourages the RIAA to simply try to channel that demand back to CD sales instead of forcing the music industry to evolve and innovate.
As for myself, I've found enough artists and netlabels (and netlabels at the Internet Archive) that freely distribute music only through the Internet (netaudio) that I don't care if the industry fixes itself or not, and I enjoy searching for new sources of netaudio: it's like online treasure hunting. Sure, there's a lot of questionable and non-creative music online, but there's also a greater diversity of music online than there is in stores.
Just like there are good FOSS alternatives to commercial software, there are good netaudio alternatives to commercial music. And if you can't find anything you like there's plenty of free audio software to help you fix that problem, because problems don't fix themselves, and few of those that cause them bother to address their problems as long as they can get away with it.
But if you really want commercial music and need to listen to it before buying it, there are always sites like Napster's that allow you to listen to full albums a limited number of times. Then at least the music industry will know that you didn't buy any tracks or CD's not because you had downloaded free copies but because you didn't like what you heard.
This wouldn't be such a problem if I had neural interfaces that could transmit input and output without having to use my cumbersome body. Early methods would probably only use thought-controlled input, but I want to be truly immersed in games some day buy having it all take place in my mind. If I could have the graphics superimposed over part of my vision, I could play a game or do some other activity on my computer instead of having to day dream while I'm stuck doing tasks that don't require much attention. I'd just have to keep the computer offline; I don't want my mind hacked.
The article suggests "the presumption has always been the more functionality and speed, the better." It has more functionality and speed in conventional upgrades. But it aslo has added, exclusive interface functionality, and it's considerably shorter load times count toward its speed. ^_^
Ever since the NES overtook Atari, game consoles have been designed too much with specs in mind. It worked back then, and the idea was ok for the 90's. But why are game companies relying on the spec mentality of the 80's? I'm glad Nintendo is pushing for change.
HDTV's aren't going to be mainstream for a while, so the 360 and PS3 are overpowered and overpriced for features not needs for most TV's. They're current/past-gen consoles with wasteful upgrades. The innovation of the Wii's game play, however, truly is next-gen. There's finally a system that will bring innovation to all of its games. I don't have to rely on just a handful to individual games to experience unigue game play.
I'm a "dedicated gamer" who's definitely getting a Wii this year. A few years from now and after I can get an affordable HDTV, I might get a PS3 if enough games come out for it that I would actually want but only after a price drop (as a result of the PS3 slim) and only as a used console. But I'm not even go to bother consider an Xbox-anything; M$ has taken too much money from me already. Besides, I already have so many games I have finished of which I can't convince myself to buy a prettier derivative.
My neophilia is not fulfilled by shiny upgrades of the same old thing but by innovation, emergence, and creativity.
I only listen to netaudio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netaudio) on my mp3 player. There are so many hobbyists and artists that are fed up with the music industry that they prefer to share their music for free. There are also those who see netaudio as a means to spread their music to land a deal; still, the music is free. Why bother with sharing or legally downloading generic music when there are musicians willing to share their music and experimentations with sound for free.
e :collection%20AND%20collection:netlabels and (http://www.archive.org/details/netlabels) and at Phlow magazine's directory of netlabels (http://www.phlow.de/netlabels/index.php/Main_Page ).
Netaudio is now big enough that there are many netlabels that deal only in such free music. Netlabels provide a level of quality control not available to other free music hosting sites, and 2 good directories of netlabels are available at the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatyp
Netaudio is the soundtrack of open source.
When I play a game, it's a work of art. Seriously, I'm creating a dynamic, variable expereince for myself from a set of hardware and software tools. Why should the fact that I intereact with a video game disqualify it as art? I interact with all other forms of art: I adjust the angle and distance with which I view a painting, there is a variety of ways I can tweak and play around an mp3 while listening to it with Winamp, my DVD player has more buttons to control movies than my PS2 and GC combined have to control a game, and I attach meaning to a work's sights and/or sounds further manipulating them beyond the original, raw sensory information I had received.
Physical and mental interaction is true of all art forms. I know that when I write a story, I'm not writing with complete control. The reader will give meaning to my words and create a text different than I had intended and possibly a better one. The reader is creating an experience from the tools I've provided. Such reading is an integral part of the art of writing. Otherwise, they're just meaningless symbols. And if I make a game out of the same story, the story evolves into a more interactive form with more room to explore and more potential for meaning attachment. The story doesn't cease to exist and neither does the fact that it's art. Games simply give more ''authorial control'' to their users than other works of art. In doing so, games are more postmodern than the arts of the past and many of those that are emerging.
Also, video games themselves are syntheses of other art forms. One might be able to argue about how well they are assembled, but even if a work art is produced through undeveloped skills, it doesn't cease to be art. And the parts of games some may claim are non-art (AI, game play) are just as much art as others, since they are representations, alterations, and extensions of reality (human intelligence, movement and physical intaction with objects), which is what art does.