Since this is the last GameSpotting, I decided it was my last chance to convey my thoughts on a subject so near and dear to my heart: fanboys. Console and PC fanboys are an interesting breed, and they always bring a unique discourse to our forums. Their well-written and wonderfully articulated posts and emails give them a special place in my heart. I don't believe I've ever addressed them directly before, so this is my chance.
Dear Fanboys,
I have a few pieces of advice I want to pass onto you in this GameSpotting. I know that in an age of multiple platforms and a huge amount of games, it can be difficult to remain loyal to one platform or one company. It's a real challenge, and you are all noble and courageous for taking on this quest. I have a few pieces of advice that I hope you all take to heart. It will help guide you down the path of the fanboy.
GameSpot is the most reliable source for reviews. Except when another publication rates the game you're hyping higher than us. Then that publication is the most reliable source. Until next week, anyway.
A person who owns just one console is inherently less biased than editors at GameSpot who have access to all consoles.
The term "exclusive" is tricky. Its definition changes depending upon whether a hot game appears on your platform or not.
Innovation is what it's called when your console has a unique feature. Otherwise, it's called a gimmick.
Your specific needs are shaped around your platform's features. For instance, if your console doesn't feature HDTV support, then it really wasn't that necessary to have, anyway.
A game that is scored less than a 9.5 on any platform you don't own is called a flop. If it does achieve that score, it's called overrated. (According to the GameSpot rating system, a game rated 8 or above is "great," but we all know that it really means "flop.")
Sales numbers are everything, as long as the numbers are best for your favorite company or console. If that means you have to dig up numbers for sales in New Zealand stores from seven months ago to prove your point, so be it.
Likewise, it is up to you to monitor how companies are doing and report every dip in stock price of manufacturers of other consoles. You're all experts in the fields of economics and finance, so your analyses will always prove correct.
You must realize, that some companies are evil, and some are inherently good. Some companies do it for the money, others do it... so, well, you can brag about them.
Perhaps the most clever thing you as fanboys can do is to come up with derogatory names for competing consoles, such as Xbrick instead of Xbox or FlopStation 2 instead of PlayStation 2.
On message boards, the best way to convey your point is to write in all caps, ignore the rules of grammar, and include lots of "LMAO's" and "LOLs" in your post.
It makes perfect sense to insult a company's lineup one moment and at the same time hope that company will go third party and develop for your console the next.
Playing a game on a different console for ten minutes at a friend's house qualifies you as an expert on that game and console.
You are obviously the most knowledgeable person about hardware. So when you're talking about the difference between CISC and RISC processors, everyone should stop and listen.
A sequel on another console is a "rehash," while a sequel on your console is not; in fact, it's highly anticipated.
Your platform is the best one in existence. Any time you see what might be evidence to the contrary, it's clearly because others are blinded by their idiotic fanboyism.
So you see, dear readers, the best part about being a fanboy is that you can never be proven wrong. As long as you ignore the rules of logic and sensibility, you will never have to worry about whether or not you made a good investment. That sure helps all the insecurity go away, doesn't it?
In the meanwhile, the rest of us will have to go on using our brains to make decisions when it comes to videogames. We will have to actually think about whether or not it's worth it to buy a console based on our needs. We will have to consider forking over more money for a new machine if its games are excellent. We will have to play the best games instead of bash them if they're not on our consoles.
In other words, the rest of us non-fanboys are doomed to a life of playing the best games and enjoying our hobby, while you will have the luxury of being able to ignore the majority of games that come out, because they're not on your console. That is indeed very lucky for you all.
And with that, I must wrap up my letter today. I hope I was able to teach you all a thing or two.
Quote: - The alpha devkit was using 2 Geforce 6800GT in SLI, the new one uses the G70
- Killzone was in-game engine running at 5fps on the alpha devkit
- I-8 and Warhawk were realtime on the alpha devkit
- GT vision was just a hi-res GT4 engine, its just a tech demo not the final game
- They were forced to change controller because of the copyright lawsuit
Quote:EGM: Let's start off now with Revolution by getting to the online side of things. How that going to be different from what's already out there? Microsoft had it pretty well handled with Xbox Live. RFA: As we get into the Internet space, the first way we're going to get there, obviously, is with Nintendo DS, which is going to be having wireless-enabled games for this holiday season. So principles that we're applying for DS are the same principles we're going to apply for Revolution, which is, we want to make it easy and included for the consumer. We want our games to be, if you will, optimized for online play. We want it to be free, so that there are no cost barriers, but we want it to be an overall fun experience so that there's also no what I call experience barriers.
By doing all that, we believe we can drive up our participation rate of online play to be well in excess of about the 15 percent you see today. And the 15 percent comes from a number of industry sources, but if you think about it, 15 out of every 100 consumers who buy an online game actually go and play it online. That's pretty small. Versus what we want to see, for example, with Mario Kart, is we want to see 80, 90, 95, near 100 percent of folks who actually enjoy the experience so much, who have access to the experience, to go do it online.
That, philosophically, is quite different than what our competitors do. There's going to be no subscription fee; we're not looking at this as a profit-driven program. We're looking at it as a way to bring more enjoyment and satisfaction to the game. And we think with what we're doing on Kart, what we're going to be doing on Animal Crossing, what we're going to be doing on future Revolution wireless Internet games, we think that's a fundamentally different model than what's being done today.
Quote:EGM: So you would say for Revolution, that we should expect more of those key franchises you already have to kind of drive and launch Revolution?
RFA: Absolutely. And as Mr. Iwata said, so we're working on our next true Mario platformer for Revolution; we're working on our next Metroid, and we showed snippets of that work. And I'm actually meeting with Michael Kelbaugh to spend some time with him to understand the vision for our next Metroid Prime game. You'll see Zelda. You'll see Smash Bros. And Mr. Iwata certainly wants that to be a wireless Internet-enabled game because we know it would be so much fun for the core gamer.
So absolutely, for Revolution you will see all of our franchises, plus, we've gone on record to say that we are aggressively working on a number of new franchises. And that is something that has been a criticism of the past, you know, "Folks, are you milking Mario and doing too many Mario-type games?" We are hard at work at new franchises and we believe that's going to be critical to the launch of Revolution.
Quote:EGM: And then third-party support. It definitely got better with GameCube than N64, but how are you going to keep that momentum with Revolution when we haven't really seen the controller but we know it's going to be...it's going to make our head explode? Say, a popular franchise like Splinter Cell, which kind of requires a conventional controller. How are you going to make third parties support a system with such an innovative setup and controller?
RFA: The thing that I always find surprising, and certainly in the last year I've had wonderful opportunities to spend quality time with a number of our key third-party publishers, is when you sit down and share the innovation with them, just how excited they get. I saw it firsthand with DS; we're seeing it now with Revolution. The fact that you and your fans haven't seen the controller doesn't mean that no one else has.
I mean, again, and Mr. Iwata did this during his presentation on Tuesday—if you just think about it, we're going to have the ability through wireless internet to download all of your great games from NES, SNES, N64. Think about it: Each of those controllers were different. How are you gonna play? That captured some the imagination of what our controller needs to be able to do, and certainly as you get into the meat of that type of innovation with the developers, their eyes truly light up because they start to imagine what's possible with that type of configuration, which is vastly different than a sheer horsepower type of game.
When darkness fills your life and pain's supreme
When evil forces have deformed your dreams
It's time to open up your heart to let the light shine through
No matter how you look at it you'll always know it's true!
GameCube, it makes a big fuss!
GameCube, Nintendo bless us!
GameCube, its hardware easily surpass the rest!
And when it comes to games we'll always get the best!
When people by your side's forsaken you
(And) you cry because you don't know what to do
It's time to open up your heart to let the light shine through
No matter how you look at it you'll always know it's true!
GameCube, it makes a big fuss!
GameCube, Nintendo bless us!
GameCube, its hardware easily surpass the rest!
And when it comes to games we'll always get the best!
It's time to open up to let your heart decide what's true...
GameCube, it makes a big fuss!
GameCube, Nintendo bless us!
GameCube, its hardware easily surpass the rest!
And when it comes to games we'll always get the best!
GameCube, it makes a big fuss!
GameCube, Nintendo bless us!
GameCube, it's how we recently surpassed the rest!
And when it comes to games we'll always get the best!
From this thread that has some other funny things in it.
Say tommorow the newly dead began to rise and attack the living how do you think it would play out?
I don't think the military would be wiped out as easily as movies show. Maybe there would be some losses from early encounters but once "Shoot em in the head" became well known the military would start racking up (re)kills on large scale.
Tom Cruise has apparently been quoted as calling all psychiatry pseudoscience (or antiscience if you prefer).
Now if you are wondering why I would even bring up a celebrity quote like that, well, it's more about the science claim.
Basically I think Tom just didn't do enough research. A more accurate statement would be "the public image of what psychiatry is and the "psychiatry shows" are pseudoscience. You know, guys like Dr. Phil or the image we all have of psychiatrists basically just talking things out with you on a couch and uncovering subconcious stuff, that's pseudoscience. The reality is psychiatry is a lot less magical than that... Basically the real psychiatrists, the ones who don't have late night radio shows, are just figuring out basic programatic methods of brain operation and how specially measured out combinations of chemicals in the brain can effect these reactions. Some of that bleeds into the common view of it, but it's not all that. In general, that crazy german guy we all know the name of was wrong on a lot of counts, specifically the idea that things like hypnosis are any more real than demon posession states or the idea of a real subconcious or the idea that crack is a good medicinal aid.
Enhancing the Classics
Nintendo's president says Revolution's download service may do just that. Full details inside.
by Matt Casamassina
June 22, 2005 - At the Electronics Entertainment Expo 2005 in May, Nintendo revealed that its Revolution console would not only connect wirelessly online, but would also enable users to download classic titles for play on the machine. The company said that hit software from its previous consoles, including NES, S-NES and Nintendo 64, would be available to download for a small fee.
According to a new EGM interview with company president Satoru Iwata, there may be more to the story, though. The executive told the magazine that these classic titles could actually be improved on Revolution.
"We are doing several experiments, including working with the original Super Mario Bros., with the new technology," Iwata said. "The game itself and the gameplay shall be identical, but the look will be different -- it's possible that with Revolution we may be able to see the old games with new looks."
Iwata did not reveal exactly how the graphics for classic titles would be enhanced, but we expect that more on the subject will be announced before the end of the year. Nintendo has stated it plans to divulge more on Revolution, including the controller, by the time the holidays roll around.
Readers can read the full interview in the latest issue of EGM, available now.
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This is what I was hoping for, this could mean Super Mario Bros. with Sunshine graphics. Still in 2-D but with 3-D graphics, we usually call this "2.5-D". The same could be said for OoT and MM which could use the Wind Waker or the new Zelda graphics or even more. I'd love to see a 2.5-D Super Metroid or the original Starfox and Starfox 64 using the graphics of Dinosaur Planet's arwing levels or Assault's graphics (as long as they dont kill the draw distance like they did in Assault!). We could see 4 player NES Legend of Zelda or Metroid and of course the biggest question is, will we see Nintendo classics with online support.
But reading the quotes you cant help but wonder if he's talking about true stereoscopic 3-D...
I just finished my 7th Star Wars novel, Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning, and it was absolutely great. It served excellenetly to blend the prequel trilogy to the classic trilogy... and the writer blended it in with appropriate humor, good action, a few ironic twists... it gives a lot of great backstory about Shmi and Watto, and Kitster Bantai is a character as well... I definitely recommend it. It is second only to The New Rebellion by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on my SW novels list...
any other insight into Star Wars novels?
1.) The New Rebellion/K.K. Rusch
2.) Tatooine Ghost/Troy Denning
3.) Shadows of the Empire/Steve Perry
4.) Planet of Twilight/Barbara Hambly
5.) The Mandalorian Armor/K.W. Jeter
6.) The Truce at Bakura/Kathy Tyers
7.) Tales from the Empire/Various
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