and yes, it has always been about spin. We're still talking about the spin regarding Duke Nuke 'Em Forever and it's been 10+ years. The spin lingers for a little while after release when the game is really good but usually when the spin stops, so does the excitement and we can all go back to being objective.
notice it's not 'action adventure', it's action/adventure.
anyway I think I know what you meant but Adventure games are all but extinct - there's also no Best Shooter, Best Text Adventure, Best Rail Shooter, etc...
I remember at E3 when Peter Moore described a "perfect storm" of gaming on the 360 - the perfect storm consisted of Madden 2007, Halo3 and GTA4. He said it was going to draw record-breaking sales numbers - D'oH!. I guess now we know a little more about why he's leaving MS...
I'm all for developers taking their time but delays always dissappoint. The gaming industry should better understand how to set expectations lower so that everyone is always pleasantly surprised. For example, at E3, Nintendo announced that Mario Galaxy will be available in December which was sooner than most expected.
meh. Firstly, you should look up the definitions of opinion and fact. I don't think the adjective 'crappier' could be used outside of an opinion in any context:)
after you're done with that, there's a finer point you've missed. There is a big difference between theoretical and actual when talking about performance. For example, the theoretical transfer speed of USB2 is 480mbs while the theoretical transfer speed of Firewire is only 400mbs. However, in actual practical use, USB2 can't even get close to Firewire's transfer speeds. I probably could have used GPUs and framerates for my analogy, but this was less typing.
so sure, the PS3 looks more powerful on paper, but (so far) there's no real-world proof of it. Of course this could change and hopefully it will but until it does, 'crappier hardware' is merely your opinion.
as for buying downloadable demos, you should RTFA. Xbox live offers demos for free right now and will continue to do so. the demos that will be up for sale are the ones that were exclusive to the xbox magazine - they were never planned to be available on xbox live and that's why they can even consider charging for them.
maybe you're not a Sony fanboy - although the 'crappier hardware' comment says otherwise since all but a couple of multi-platform games look better on xbox (currently) - but you sure sound like an MS-hater... I hear they frequent these here parts.
it's not nickle-and-diming when you have a choice - don't buy the downloads if they charge for them. problem avoided and sends a consumer-initiated message to them which will probably result with them lowering or hopefully pulling the prices away from demos. action-->reaction
you have a point although when you buy a subscription to magazine, you are really paying for articles and insight written by the editors and journalists rather than just a disc of demos.
again to your point, before xbox live, I would regularly see demo discs for sale at the checkout counters of stores like Gamestop for a price.
still, what are we paying for when we sign up to xbox live? the ability to pay MORE for demos?
I regularly download demos from xbox live - even games I'm not really interested in. I'll surely stop doing that if it costs more money.
i wonder if the $1billion hit on the warranties is behind this...
I didn't read every post here (so spare me the RTFA), but I'm surprised no one metioned the slashdot article about HardOCP's '30 days with mac OSX':
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/05/ 148259
of course the point wasn;'t to compare prices or even hardware, but they came to the conclusion that a Mac is going to cost you without much digging at all. I think the proverb they came up with was: 'if you have a problem, you will need to buy your way out of it'. So just for upgrades alone, Macs are actually a bad deal.
from the HardOCP article:
"The hardware lock-in and lack of quality freeware makes owning and maintaining a Macintosh an expensive endeavor."
for the cost of a machine, you need to look a little further past the sticker shock.
The worst news for Sony, though, is the reports that they aren't sold out any longer and PS3s are sitting on shelves
this is true! I can go down to BestBuy right now and buy a PS3. If I want a Wii, I need to wait until the next rumored shipment (Jan 21st is the current rumor) and wait in line before the store opens... 2 months after launch and 1 month after christmas! I saw this happening even before Christmas - I could have easily bought a PS3 before December 25th but very little chance to get a Wii. also, by this time last year, even though MS had production troubles, I was able to get a 360.
If you like consoles, why do you care beyond which one is more fun to play, or has more games that appeal to you?
it's important if you consider your purchase as an investment - albeit an investment in fun. For example, if I went out and purchased a PS3 for $600 without considering it's marketshare, supply, demand, price, future support, etc... then what happens if MS and Nintendo trounce Sony and force them out of the game? I'm out $600, that's what.
I would love to own a PS3 but I am not going to buy one until the whole HDDVD Vs. Blu-ray war is decided. If HDDVD is chosen as the standard, the price of the PS3 will instantly be cut in half [guessing]. Even with the betamax albatross around its neck, the PS3 is still a good deal at $200-$300.
i don't think that's possible... Net Neutrality is about giving the fastest response times to those who pay for it. only big corps will get the good speeds. We at home will only have fast response from these corps. unless you pay a lot of money to whatever committee is in charge of Net Neutrality, access to your home server will be ssssslllllooooooowwwww.... They are probably smiling about this fact as they realize peer-to-peer nonsense will also go away. greedy bastards!
Bandwidth isn't the issue - or at least not the whole issue - it's latency. online gaming doesn't need a lot of bandwidth, it needs low latency. You can have tons of bandwidth but if your latency is high, gaming will suck for you. Like others, I am alittle confused about what exactly 'Net Neutrality' means in terms of whether voting FOR it or AGAINST it will make my ping times increase but that's the general idea. paying $100/month for 20mbit/sec bandwidth doesn't guarantee low latency... paying $3000/month for redundant T3's will though;) this whole issue is not up to us anyway, it is up to whichever Lobbyists fork over more $$ to the corrupt politician you voted for.
the enemy AI is not always very good... too often, if part of them is exposed behind their cover, you can plug away on their shoulder or foot and they don't react to it until they die. piss poor. great game though and great review - very down to earth and honest!
that is a blanket statement and fundamentally flawed.
what race, sex, religion, etc are you? Lets turn that broken microscope on you to see what sterotypes are completely false!
Any hobby-turned-obssesion has the potential to cause dissociation (as well as a few chemical substances). don't fall into the same stinking rat hole O'Reilley did. The condition of being anti-social and being detached from reality existed long before video games.
Also, what about the study that was done (and posted here on slashdot) a few months back where they found MMORPG gamers to be MORE social, not anti social. Text Messaging and IM are social activities, so what if they are doing that instead of not talking to the person that happens to be walking next to them down the hall. When you drive your car on the highway, you are also not connected with reality while you focus on the road.
so, please keep your blankets away from your statements!
The dirty secret of the consol business is HAVING A LARGER INSTALL BASE DOES NOT SELL GAMES!
I have to disagree. A larger install base DOES sell more games although indirectly. We see proof of this with the Gamecube. gamecube with smaller install base = less 3rd party support = less games available = less attractive to potential adopters = weak overall sales = gamecube dies ugly slow death by starvation. PS2 with huge install base = lots of 3rd party support = tons of available games and choices = attractive to potential adopters AND current owners = continued record-breaking sales = PS2 still competes even though it is old and the least powerful. once either of these trends start to play out, the snowball just gets bigger... for better or worse. I agree that a larger install base does not *necessarily* increase the sales of any 1 particular game, but just by statistics alone, more sales are going to happen.
Actually, I think breaking the copy protection on the PS3 would HELP Sony, not sink them.
Throughout history, piracy has had 2 effects on the games industry - Piracy has either hindered sales (and therefore drive up costs) or it has helped sales. We hear everyday about how piracy is hindering sales, so let's look at history for examples of piracy helping sales. For example:
Doom for PC. Doom would never have been as popular as it became without rampant piracy. *everyone* played it and became hooked because it was free (and being a great game didn't hurt either;). Once eveyone was hooked, it wasn't a stretch for someone to pay $$ for Doom2, quake, etc...
the PSOne was easy to mod and copy games. yet this console took off like noobody's business. The PSOne's competition was N64 and Dreamcast(later) both of which could not be modded for cracking. I had a modded PSOne and being able to cheaply 'sample' the entire PS library just got me more hooked into the system than if I were only able to play the few games I could afford.
there are countless other examples of piracy helping rather than hurting, but no one wants to talk about the good side effects of bad practices - apparently the condition is a bit too complex for journalists and accountants.
Slashdot Mirror
happier? probably not.
dissapointed? definitely not.
and yes, it has always been about spin. We're still talking about the spin regarding Duke Nuke 'Em Forever and it's been 10+ years. The spin lingers for a little while after release when the game is really good but usually when the spin stops, so does the excitement and we can all go back to being objective.
exactly.
oh, then they must have heard this back when it was released!
>> Best Action/Adventure Game - Bioshock
notice it's not 'action adventure', it's action/adventure.
anyway I think I know what you meant but Adventure games are all but extinct - there's also no Best Shooter, Best Text Adventure, Best Rail Shooter, etc...
I agree, Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros. look really good! I'm really looking forward to these.
when I saw Wiifit though, I thought, 'wow that's cool, my Mom might like that'.
I never even considered it for myself.
I remember at E3 when Peter Moore described a "perfect storm" of gaming on the 360 - the perfect storm consisted of Madden 2007, Halo3 and GTA4. He said it was going to draw record-breaking sales numbers - D'oH!. I guess now we know a little more about why he's leaving MS...
I'm all for developers taking their time but delays always dissappoint. The gaming industry should better understand how to set expectations lower so that everyone is always pleasantly surprised. For example, at E3, Nintendo announced that Mario Galaxy will be available in December which was sooner than most expected.
best D'oh! --> D'oH!
this one!
meh. Firstly, you should look up the definitions of opinion and fact. I don't think the adjective 'crappier' could be used outside of an opinion in any context :)
after you're done with that, there's a finer point you've missed. There is a big difference between theoretical and actual when talking about performance. For example, the theoretical transfer speed of USB2 is 480mbs while the theoretical transfer speed of Firewire is only 400mbs. However, in actual practical use, USB2 can't even get close to Firewire's transfer speeds. I probably could have used GPUs and framerates for my analogy, but this was less typing.
so sure, the PS3 looks more powerful on paper, but (so far) there's no real-world proof of it. Of course this could change and hopefully it will but until it does, 'crappier hardware' is merely your opinion.
as for buying downloadable demos, you should RTFA. Xbox live offers demos for free right now and will continue to do so. the demos that will be up for sale are the ones that were exclusive to the xbox magazine - they were never planned to be available on xbox live and that's why they can even consider charging for them.
maybe you're not a Sony fanboy - although the 'crappier hardware' comment says otherwise since all but a couple of multi-platform games look better on xbox (currently) - but you sure sound like an MS-hater... I hear they frequent these here parts.
it's not nickle-and-diming when you have a choice - don't buy the downloads if they charge for them. problem avoided and sends a consumer-initiated message to them which will probably result with them lowering or hopefully pulling the prices away from demos. action-->reaction
you have a point although when you buy a subscription to magazine, you are really paying for articles and insight written by the editors and journalists rather than just a disc of demos.
again to your point, before xbox live, I would regularly see demo discs for sale at the checkout counters of stores like Gamestop for a price.
still, what are we paying for when we sign up to xbox live? the ability to pay MORE for demos?
I regularly download demos from xbox live - even games I'm not really interested in. I'll surely stop doing that if it costs more money.
i wonder if the $1billion hit on the warranties is behind this...
I didn't read every post here (so spare me the RTFA), but I'm surprised no one metioned the slashdot article about HardOCP's '30 days with mac OSX': http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/05/ 148259
of course the point wasn;'t to compare prices or even hardware, but they came to the conclusion that a Mac is going to cost you without much digging at all. I think the proverb they came up with was: 'if you have a problem, you will need to buy your way out of it'. So just for upgrades alone, Macs are actually a bad deal.
from the HardOCP article:
"The hardware lock-in and lack of quality freeware makes owning and maintaining a Macintosh an expensive endeavor."
for the cost of a machine, you need to look a little further past the sticker shock.
hahaha, like little viewtiful squirrels preparing for a long winter...
this is true! I can go down to BestBuy right now and buy a PS3. If I want a Wii, I need to wait until the next rumored shipment (Jan 21st is the current rumor) and wait in line before the store opens... 2 months after launch and 1 month after christmas! I saw this happening even before Christmas - I could have easily bought a PS3 before December 25th but very little chance to get a Wii. also, by this time last year, even though MS had production troubles, I was able to get a 360.
it's important if you consider your purchase as an investment - albeit an investment in fun. For example, if I went out and purchased a PS3 for $600 without considering it's marketshare, supply, demand, price, future support, etc... then what happens if MS and Nintendo trounce Sony and force them out of the game? I'm out $600, that's what.
I would love to own a PS3 but I am not going to buy one until the whole HDDVD Vs. Blu-ray war is decided. If HDDVD is chosen as the standard, the price of the PS3 will instantly be cut in half [guessing]. Even with the betamax albatross around its neck, the PS3 is still a good deal at $200-$300.
i don't think that's possible...
Net Neutrality is about giving the fastest response times to those who pay for it.
only big corps will get the good speeds. We at home will only have fast response from these corps.
unless you pay a lot of money to whatever committee is in charge of Net Neutrality, access to your home server will be ssssslllllooooooowwwww.... They are probably smiling about this fact as they realize peer-to-peer nonsense will also go away. greedy bastards!
Bandwidth isn't the issue - or at least not the whole issue - it's latency. ;)
online gaming doesn't need a lot of bandwidth, it needs low latency. You can have tons of bandwidth but if your latency is high, gaming will suck for you.
Like others, I am alittle confused about what exactly 'Net Neutrality' means in terms of whether voting FOR it or AGAINST it will make my ping times increase but that's the general idea.
paying $100/month for 20mbit/sec bandwidth doesn't guarantee low latency... paying $3000/month for redundant T3's will though
this whole issue is not up to us anyway, it is up to whichever Lobbyists fork over more $$ to the corrupt politician you voted for.
the enemy AI is not always very good...
too often, if part of them is exposed behind their cover, you can plug away on their shoulder or foot and they don't react to it until they die. piss poor.
great game though and great review - very down to earth and honest!
EXACTLY!! O'Reilly is always sooo transparent!
There;s a DaVinci Code joke in there somewhere. But being a mere male, I am unable to conceptualize.
for the record, Wonder Woman's plane is also Un-manned.
my God. the bane of gamers has become the USA's last hope... lag.
I have to disagree. A larger install base DOES sell more games although indirectly. We see proof of this with the Gamecube.
gamecube with smaller install base = less 3rd party support = less games available = less attractive to potential adopters = weak overall sales = gamecube dies ugly slow death by starvation.
PS2 with huge install base = lots of 3rd party support = tons of available games and choices = attractive to potential adopters AND current owners = continued record-breaking sales = PS2 still competes even though it is old and the least powerful.
once either of these trends start to play out, the snowball just gets bigger... for better or worse. I agree that a larger install base does not *necessarily* increase the sales of any 1 particular game, but just by statistics alone, more sales are going to happen.
For example:
- Doom for PC. Doom would never have been as popular as it became without rampant piracy. *everyone* played it and became hooked because it was free (and being a great game didn't hurt either
;). Once eveyone was hooked, it wasn't a stretch for someone to pay $$ for Doom2, quake, etc...
- the PSOne was easy to mod and copy games. yet this console took off like noobody's business. The PSOne's competition was N64 and Dreamcast(later) both of which could not be modded for cracking. I had a modded PSOne and being able to cheaply 'sample' the entire PS library just got me more hooked into the system than if I were only able to play the few games I could afford.
there are countless other examples of piracy helping rather than hurting, but no one wants to talk about the good side effects of bad practices - apparently the condition is a bit too complex for journalists and accountants.