metadigital

Oh yeah, I rememeber that fool.. I had to play that part twice just to figure out what happened. One moment I'm walking around, and another something explodes in the distance. " <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What about All in all the game basically caused the FPS genre to take a good hard look at itself and see what was wrong. before this came out story was secondary to "KILL SMASH MAIM DESTROY... in a fashion that made it fairly difficult." Then with the creation of this the Story became somthing everyone had to add to their game. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm confused. I thought you were talking about , too: who is ? Are you referring to , or the **** in the silo? Damn, now I want to play it again! I tell you what, that game has the magic: it just sucks me in to play it every time I think of it (sings: I always catch my breath) ...

I care only inasmuch as I oppose ignorance wherever I find it. My you are eloquent. Please, if it's not too much trouble, would you mind explaining to me what the difference is between forming "educated opinions based on fact (not personal bias or opinion)"? To wit, if I have an opinion, it is defined by none, all or some information and judgement. Anyway, enough syntax correction; every point you have made above is incorrect. Allow me to elucidate, below. [*]I don't recall ever having a games publisher holding a gun to my head and frog marching me into a computer retailer to enforce some onerous hardware purchasing regime. [*]It is perfectly true, though, that any hardware investment from a previous console generation is completely redundant when the next generation is released. There is NO UPGRADE PATH. You cannot play an Xbox 360 game on an Xbox, for example. So it seems that your point actually scores against your argument. [*]I also know, from first hand experience, that there are innumerable games that I can choose to play from the PC back catalogue. [*]I have a laptop that is two years old and I am able to play every game on the market right now. [*]What's more, even a PC that is over three years old can play the newest games, just with the graphics configuration set to a lower standard. [*]So I can choose to play a given game on my old PC, equivalent to a console, or I may decide instead to upgrade it to play the game with better graphics, sound, interface or whatever. [*]What's more, I am able to buy a PC for less than

Cloth maps 4 T3H W1N!!

I think you trailed off mid-sentence there. And you can still make judgements as to how much of the RAM is allocated to video. ... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ran out of memory? Except your always going to be sacrificing one thing for another. Use too much on graphics and your game will move like a slug. When you have a fixed ammount, then you can push each aspect to the limit without any worries of compromising either. Dedicated memory also seems to be superior at what it does. Since you wont ever be able to go beyond what you have in the big pot with unified memory, it's always going to be either a juggling act or a compromise if your seeking to bring the most out of the system. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I could easily argue that the added flexibility granted by being able to increase graphics capacity in acutely-demanding situations is a positive advantage. Fixed ratios are just making the developers work to some arbitrary standard, wheras being able to manage the CPU/GPU RAM manually will involve more overhead but give more power where it can be applied for greatest use: no point in having the GPU redlining whilst the CPU is sitting on its hands with nothing to do, after all. There is no reason to believe that dedicated RAM is necessarily any faster, either.

Eh? I haven't seen any chocobo eating poop yet. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> assistance

I find myself agreeing 100% with you, mkreku. For the first game, which is (by any measure) a classic, I would make the following comments. Although the trajectory of the plot became obvious as the game progressed into the second half, I was still significantly impressed by the scale and depth of the end-game; not to mention the perfect pacing. (Remember long it takes to obtain the second biomod canister.) I just wanted to keep on playing, and the game kept on giving. I also can see the negative aspects of not being able to determine the PC's alliance in the game, but I would argue that the ability to complete the game three different ways makes up for this somewhat. I would also use the sequel as a comparison: I don't think all the negative reputation is attributable to the fact that the game is a sequel, especially to a fantastic game. A lot of it is because the second game doesn't compare on almost every scale that can be used: the only improvement is in graphics, and that is not going to compete with story, pacing, game length, character development (what happened to the RPG elements?), etc. Not sure why you didn't like the story: superficial? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that: after all it's only the greatest conspiracy theory of human history! Graphics really don't have a bearing, imo: I only played the game a couple of years ago (DirectX 9.0 was out), and it was certainly good enough to immerse me in the game. Perhaps I was more susceptible because I had encountered so many of the conspiracy theories in my own personal reading, or maybe I am more prone to conspiracies; whatever reason I found the game very compelling and the sequel far less so, mainly because the plot had not advanced significantly.

Ffft-ft-ffft-fffft-ffft!

Chicobos are coprophagic.

Who, Volo? Nah, that's how he always types. "

So much for SMAC 2 <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Follow the Sid!

Check out the article when you have a spare ten minutes (it's only a couple of pages); Greg Costikyan posits a clear and cogent series of allegations against BIG BUSINESS and their attempts to "Hollywoodize" (my analogy) the games industry; also Part 2 gives a battle plan for us (all) to fix it. :D

News Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Update Released November 2, 2005, 4:00 pm

I read in the latest Scientific American that some researchers have found, in mice, embrionic brain cells in the mothers. This is significant because the embrionic cells have passed over the blood-brain barrier intact (possibly in response to a chemical distress call from the brain, as they have been found as various glial-type cells, as well as macrophages). It is already established that the cells from the natal infant can survive in the mother for up to 27 years. They are now trying to find evidence in humans, by looking for Y chromosomes in mothers' brain tissue. Possible applications may be to just inject stem cells into the blood stream for the "rescue raiders" to lend a pseudopod.

Hmm. Either you have a faulty memory or the prices in the US have had a very different evolution than the swedish ones. When I started playing games on my Commodore 128 (same as Commodore 64 but crappier) the games cost between 49 SEK and 149 SEK. Today they range from 299 SEK to 599 SEK. Console games are even worse with prices up and above 649 SEK. On average a normal game is THREE TIMES more expensive today than it was back in the eighties. I wouldn't blame that difference on inflation. I remember the post where Feargus said the prices have remained constant but the development costs have gone through the roof. I still don't understand what he meant, because the prices have also gone through the roof in Sweden at least, just as development costs have. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Escapist, "Death to the Gaming Industry, Part I", issue 8

However making short and or poor games is a sure fire way not to sell them. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Stolen, anyone ... Revenge of the Sith, anyone ...

True. There was a retrospective in the latest Custom PC issue, where the journalist compared todays technology with a decade ago: swapping Office 2003 on Windows XP for Office 95 on Windows 95 and installing it from FORTY 95mm (un)floppy disks; one big difference was the cost of computers: a 486DX2 66MHz CPU, 16MB RAM and Matrox 2MB graphics card cost (in todays money)

Relgion is the opiate of the people. Karl Marx

Kelvin. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I thought Kelvins was used for extreme temptures like the Sun. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Kelvin is just centigrade starting from absolute zero (i.e. Water freezes at 0

I agree that it would be tricky to implement....that is why I think you should have to burn a bunch of feat slots to wield such a weapon and also maintain it. Now, let us say you actually hit someone with that thing.....20% chance of vaporization....that could work. But come on, flame throwers? they are already in the game except only droids can use them. Same thing with cryogenic blasts. What about grenade throwers? Mortars? Plasma canons? Laser sniper rifles (as in the kind that actually kill)? Yes, I want these things. Balanced is obtained with mandatory feats and possibly taking an initiative penalty. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What I always thought was barmy was the fact that any PC throwing a grenade would automatically hit their target, unless the target physically moved to a new location in between the throw and the impact of the munition. That might need a bit of tweakery ...

Me too! Create another droid like HK-47 but better and more psychotic. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I want the ability to affect players minds: made them become more psychotic (or even neurotic), either slowly in a conversation-based interaction, or with a blast of energy in a combat interaction, so that they become increasingly unstable: meglomaniacal: attack everyone to become the ruler of the galaxy psychotic: attack everyone because killing is fun multiple personality: attack everyone because the voices told them to neurotic: attack everyone with a large vat of industrial cleaning agents, to remove the dirt paranoid: attackeveryone, before they are attacked, or attack themselves, because life is too depressing to go on [*]etc Imagine giving an entire group of enemies acute suicidal depression? They would all immedaitely stop fighting because it was too much effort, and pointless anyway ...

Do not pollute ANOTHER thread with an inane holy war about console versus PC, or console versus console. The only time a console has been objectively better than a PC was when the original Playstation was released in 1995, and the spec was better than the 486DX66 mainstream CPUs out there. You keep buying

Sounds like the psycho-analytical method of GMing: GM: So, what do you expect to happen next? Players: um, ah, a skimpily clad, very beautiful woman magically appears in front of us ... yeah! But it's a Succubus! GM: ... And how does this make you feel ... "

Yeah. And Daque's changed her avatar! What happened to the Tank Girl idea ..?

I agree with all your ramblings there; I especially liked the analogy for the GM to a judge. I would underline the above sentiment, too. There has to be some buy in from the players, if they aren't intersted enough to ask about their surroundings, then don't automatically describe them as if they were playing Zork in verbose mode, and you are the talking book ... One camouflaged monster is all it takes to make the players take a healthy interest in their surroundings ...

Right, now Reveilled out of the way, send me your orders and I'll adjudicate ...