JB0

While lots of silicon storage WOULD cost much more than the pennies per DVD, you can do a lot for load times without reverting to ROM. People are actually pretty dumb. You can make an AI as smart as people and whip it easily. For the record, I LIKE "too difficult." I think most games are too EASY. The best thing is adaptive difficulty. The game actively adjusts game variables, including the AI, with respect to player performance. This avoids people getting mad because they just can't get anywhere, people getting mad because the game is too easy, and forcing people to guess on difficulty option(I'm never sure what level I should set when it's available, because everyone has diffrent ideas about easy, normal, and hard). Snake kills a LOT of people. But I think the answer to his question is... it's BORING. They still make adventure games occasionally, but they don't sell very well. It sounds like SimCity: Lost to me. Randomization IS something I'd like to see more of, though. It can be used a lot more than it is now. Sometimes. Others are there because they were there before. Rigid difficulty settings and locked enemy patterns are NES paradigms that we never shook off. It's quite easy to randomize enemy spawns and types. Adjusting variables on-the-fly isn't a lot harder. The industry just never got past the NES, though the logic behind the NES paradigm is long gone(For the games being made at the time, specific placement of enemies on the map was the most effective way of manipulating difficulty. Doesn't work so well in 3D.).

SCE has tended to have good advertizing. Yeah. Every division has their own products, and there's a LOT of infighting. To the degree that Sony will often pay for an outside company's product when they have an in-house project that does exactly what they need. That's one fight. They're still major players in the TV and audio markets. They died, then came back somewhere around 98. Their popularity waned as hard-drive MP3 players rose(Sony's stubborn insistence on only supporting ATRAC at the time didn't help). While a major improvement over the earlier revisions of the disk format, 1GB isn't what I'd call virtually unlimited. I have 4 GB of just music. My last PC backup required multiple DVDRWs. Apple pushes a lot harder than anyone else in the industry. It's how the iPod became and remains the dominant MP3 player. Sony isn't pushing any less hard than any other TV, stereo, or game system manufacturer from what I've seen.

Ahh. Thanks JB0. I just had a giddy giggle fest to that. Poop jokes make me laugh. Especially if they're worked into otherwise non-poop-related discussion so brilliantly. 396900[/snapback] It wans't really a poop joke. I was just following to the the logical conclusion of the ACTUAL joke, which was that he was tough enough to chug molten rock on a regular basis.

Bootleg cards? Do you mean non-Sony brand cards, or are the chinese running around slapping huge flash RAM chips into MemStick casings with "SonDisk" and Samy" engraved in them?

Actually if I recall, the Macross simply overloaded it's barrier inside Bodolza's baseship and took it down from the inside out. You may be confusing DYRL with SDF Macross... 398470[/snapback] You're confusing Robotech with Macross. The "Robotech Masters" in Robotech theorized that an inverted barrier, when overloaded, could kill the flagship. In Macross, it was an overglorified version of a Daedalus Attack. Put pinpoint barriers up(an upgraded version no less! I counted 4 disks.), ram the ship to get through the outer armor, plow through the soft squishy innards until you're in the core, fire EVERY REACTION WEAPON ON THE SHIP, and then put the barrier up to save the Macross from the ensuing explosion to end all explosions when all those nukes started hitting things. Which it did, to a large degree. The Macross took damage(it looks pretty rough when it's coming back down to Earth at the end), but was intact and repairable. Remember, a barrier overload only releases the energy the barrier has absorbed. If they nukled their barrier, they'd just spread the power of their nukes out over a very wide area, diluting the force delivered to any one target massively. Better to directly hit targets with the nukes. And really, I never understood why the Robotech Masters thought a barrier inversion and overload was needed when they were inside the armor and firing at things.

That is one of the most insulting things to say about your friggin customers! Lets hope those same hardcore gamers don't have subscriptions to Time magazine, oh wait a-minute they're of the age bracket that actually buys that rag. However it's entirely Atypically of the console industry, and most other ones also, to say "Screw you!" to the fans that made them. It's ACCURATE, though. If you ask gamers what they want, they point to something they like currently, and say "That." They don't think beyond what's there now. Would you like to know what gamers have explicitly said they DON'T want? More than one fire button, analog joysticks, and polygon graphics. Based on the fuss raised when the controller was initially unveiled, they are. Tech that's never been effectively leveraged in the video game industry. I think you mean accept. And no one's FORCED to accept it. If people really hate the Wiimote, they... WON'T BUY A WII! Shocking, I know. But the fact that Sony expended the effort to steal the primary feature of the Wiimote indicates that people ARE interested. BTW, what's so bad about an upgraded GameCube? The SNES was an upgraded NES. The Genesis was an upgraded Master System. The PS2 was (debatably) an upgraded PS1. The XBox 360 and PS3 both use upgraded versions of the GameCube CPU. Upgrading the GameCube makes the system more powerful, while at the same time leaving programmers with a familiar architecture to work with. It's actually a GOOD thing. Maybe you mean the Wii isn't ENOUGH of an upgrade. Let's see... MS is losing money on every 300-400$ 360. Sony's priced the PS3 at 500 dollars minimum, with 600 getting you the HDTV support they've been hyping as an integral part of the PS3 experience. I ASSUME they're at least breaking even, given Sony can't afford to take massive losses in their game division right now. Nintendo has explicitly targeted a system that's profitable at a 2-3 hundred price tag from when they started development. Me personally? I think 300 is about the upper limit for a reasonable game machine price. The PS3 may as well not exist right now, and the 360 needs a price cut(the 300$ version is actually 340, since you have to buy an overpriced proprietary memory card). A surprise would be high-quality games instead of tired retread sequels? I thought we were talking about Nintendo, not Sony. Squeenix doesn't make Star Ocean. tri-Ace does. tri-Ace MIGHT make a Wii game. They gravitate towards unique gameplay ideas, which Wii happens to be very inviting of. Squeenix is already booked for FF: Crystal Chronicles 2. Which isn't what you meant. But I don't see how motion-tracking benefits mainline FF. Last I heard, it was highly menu-driven.

I grant all movies some liberty. Otherwise I'd be running around bitching about how everything flickers at 24Hz.

Damn... now I need a WonderSwan.

Enlighten me. How does the ring make no sense? I'm not being difficult-- I actually think the ring looks dumb, overused, and like a Star Trek VI ripoff. But I need real reasons to hate it. 398296[/snapback] There's just no way to make it happen. That's part of why it looks dumb. It bothered me about as much as the fact that there was sound in space. 398308[/snapback] Yeah... I grant sounds under artistic license. Physics-defying laser rings... no. I did like that about the old PC game Tyrian, though. They claimed the sounds were generated by the ship's computer in response to sensor readings.

For what it's stated in the series and it appears, it actually does. It seems like Zentran's main guns' range are around a stable orbit from Earth (50,000 km at most?), while the Macross blasts the 2 scout ships Vlrithai sends from Earth's atmosphere and up to around half way to moon orbit (150,000 km?). Those are both minimum ranges. We have nothing to go by for maximums. Though the fact that the Macross' cannon ripped through a wall of rock, boiled off a large mass of water, and tore through the atmosphere BEFORE punching that zentradi vessel(which it went through like it wasn't there) implies a VERY high range based on power output. And the rock, steam, and air failed to disrupt the beam's coherence signifigantly. I think the functional ranges are limited by sensor accuracy as opposed to the weapon. We had the legendary reaction weaponry. We rebuilt the ASS. We could've added reaction weaponry to the ASS. They didn't really consider the vessel in and of itself to be a threat. They chased it because it was part of the Supervision Army. They let us live because they wanted our nukes. Then they got culturally contaminated and tried to exterminate us. But we had a SEKRIT WEAPON, insider knowledge, and a large deal of zentradi defectors. And yes, luck. Bodol was polite enough to park near the Grand Cannon's attack area, so when it fired, it cleared a path straight through the fleet for easy access to the command center.

I just had a thought... Sony's been in bad financial shape recently. SCE was basically all that kept them afloat last year. They NEED to turn a profit on their games division. Likely why the PS3 is priced as high as it is, so they don't lose money on it. But they won't actually be GAINING a lot if it doesn't move, which it isn't likely to do. Hence, the jump in PSP ads recently. It's a profitable chunk of plastic, and they can move it. The PSP may be Sony's primary platform in the near future.

Some of those are pretty slick. So... Scrapmetal is Perceptor's little brother, huh?

I guess its an age thing. Those of us who saw them in the theaters, who grew up knowing them one way, want to be able to see them that way again. For us, the SE films detract from the experience, not add to it. 398027[/snapback] I beg to differ. The only one I didn't see in the theaters was ANH. I still prefer the new DVD versions. 398225[/snapback] As much as people like to scream bloody murder today, the revised ANH Death Star battle was damn cool to see in the theater, back in '97. 398234[/snapback] Unless you're the analytical guy going "How the fack did they get a donut explosion? That stupid ring makes no freaking sense!"

I THINK so. If it is, it should benefit from the vastly higher image quality of DVD. I actually started rewatching my VHS set the other day. Was surprised at exactly how bad the image was. Couldn't even get a proper black, just some soupy gray.

Are you attempting to imply that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade wasn't real?

They should release a version with those in the manual. The world's first dodeca-changer.

Whoops, sorry.

Lack of engineering. Especially with the power supply outside the case, there's no excuse for the current situation. I've never had a weight issue, personally. ... Except with the Dreamcast. That was due to the location of the weight more than the actual amount. But the people that like it now have no option at all. Hardware manuals are as bad as software now? Ewwww.

Oooh, that IS nifty. I hadn't seen that one before.

Why? 398110[/snapback] Didn`t like it and didn`t feel comfortable with it. 398116[/snapback] It was disablable in every game I ever owned.

That's the PROBLEM. They kept Select. WTF? They glued handles on at random. Poorly-angled and poorly-sized handles. They glued a second set of shoudler buttons on. Which was their (second) dumbest idea ever. They carved fangs into the d-pad, and then made it too stiff to be comfortable. They glued analog sticks on at random, both in inconvenient locations. Even the ignornat masses thought the PS2 should have moved left analog to the d-pad. Then put buttons under the sticks, whcih trumped the shoulder2 buttons for retardedness. The post-SNES market hasn't seen a lot of controller evolution(the Saturn pad and 3-handed N64 controllers were the last to attempt it). It's all been about gluing random crap onto an SNES pad. As for people ripping people off... let's look at some of the major innovations of the second coming of the video game. Sega Master System's black console(continued on through Sega's entire pre-Dreamcast line): GCE Vectrex, "Vader"-style Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Colecovision(all hit around the same time). Nintendo64's analog sticks: GCE Vectrex/Atari 5200(both hit within a few months of each other). Nintendo64's integrated 4-player support: 2600 with paddles, 5200 with all controllers. GameCube's 1st-party wireless controllers: 2600. And yes, they worked very well. Game&Watch/NES's gamepad: Mattel Intellivision. PlayStation's pseudo-3D graphics: Vectrex(check out MineStorm's intro if you don't believe me). SNES for the raster-based psuedo-3D crown, despite mode 7's technical limitations. Jaguar for unshaded polygons, unless you really WANT to count StarFox(which was dependent on a very powerful coprocessor to do the calculations). In which case the Jag gets shaded polygons. The PS and Saturn retain ownership of the texture-mapped polygon crown. Virtual Boy's true 3D graphics: Vectrex again. Followed by the NES and Sega Master System. The Virtual Boy retains the crown for INTEGRATED 3D, though. Wii's motion-tracking controller: Mattel Power Glove. There were a few games that supported the Glove natively(if nothing else, Super Glove Ball), or I'd dismiss it. Microsoft's download network: ... Okay, this one's multi-faceted. XBox Live is the first unified integrated standard. BUT apsects of it are lifted from Dreamcast(integrated internet connectivity), Intellivision(Mattel had a cable TV game download service YEARS before Sega's Sega Channel and Nintendo's Satellaview satellite TV download service), and NES(the Famicom Disk System's game purchase kiosks(and their flashRAM cart SNES/GB "Nintendo Power progeny) are similar conceptually to XBox Live Arcade). Microsoft's integrated save media: SegaCD? TurboCD? Saturn? There's a REASON I've always thought memory cards were a ripoff. They're pretty much required, and there's no good reason not to integrate some save media. SCD and Saturn also supported OPTIONAL memory carts, so let's not hear the tired argument about bringing your saves to a friend's house. The Playstation/GameCube/Dreamcast "optional" memory card paradigm is no better than if they'd sold you a system without AV cables.

Why? PS3 is slated to have a full 6 axes of motion, just like the Wii Wand. Unfortunately, the wand is far better suited to utilizing them than the NES-paradigm 2-handed pad. 2 axes are nearly impossible to use(z-rotation IS impossible, and x-rotation may as well be, IMO), and the x,y,z-position axes are gonna be more cumbersome since you have to wave both hands in sync instead of just your dominant hand. They would've been better off if they HAD stuck with just a y-rotation tilt sensor.

Actually JB0, it did come from his past training as well because if you rememeber that one scene in Sweet Sixteen, Hikaru was fascinated by Max's fighting skills because when he had asked him where did he learn to fight like that, Max told him that he had learned those techniques while he was in flight school. Unless he used that excuse to cover up for the supposed real reason why he's so good at dogfighting. Note that Kakizaki went to the exact same training facility and had a similar "skill ranking." But wasn't even in Max's league. Hikaru went through the same training too, minus basic aviation. But including combat aviation and VF-1-specific training, including GERWALK and Battroid modes. And augmented that training with signifigant real-world combat as a part of Skull Squadron. And HE didn't know those moves. Max may HAVE picked that up in training, but it certainly wasn't on the lesson plan. More likely he observed an experienced combat pilot doing it during practice or a demonstration, and worked it out from there. It was still learned in training, but not as an actual part of the curriculum. Hence Max isn't a liar, and there's a good reason Hikaru and Kakizaki can't do the same thing. So are you saying that Max had no idea that he was injected with alien DNA that gave him superior dogfighting skills or what by secretly telling him that he was receiving a booster shot when it turns out to be the DNA. I also thought he was 19 years old like Hikaru. 397989[/snapback] I'm saying genetic engineering is best done in childhood. The most logical point to engineer a being is actually at conception, when there's only a handful of cells to alter, and changes will cascade out from there. Hence, Max was superior from his first day as an embryo. You don't inject DNA anyways. You can inject a customized retrovirus that resequences the existing DNA, but that's not the same thing. And Hikaru wasn't 19. 16 at first appearnace in the TV show. Max and Hikaru are both 18 in DYRL, but the TV series is officially the "real" version of events. http://macross.anime.net/characters/index.html

***Quickly hides thumbs*** I for the most part have liked Sony's family of controllers going back to the original 1994 design. The one thing I think they could change is the shoulder button arrangement so that R2 and L2 become triggers like on the Xbox1 and 360 controllers... after 5 months of heavy use, the 360 controller has become my most favorite controller of any system. 397915[/snapback] I'm on the other side. I hate the original digital pad, the DualShock, and the DualShock 2.

Except for that scene where Greedo's gun shoots at a right angle...