Redstate

singular. Sorry to be a nudge.

Better a nudge than nudnik. In any event, anyone who uses Yiddish when nit-picking the title of the Apocalypse of John is allright in my book. (Though "Revelations" is a popular mistake -- see Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation].)

Happy 3rd night of Chanukah, to those who celebrate it.

For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection.

is just the best language on earth. When dealing with a Yiddish speaker, you do not have to actually understand Yiddish to know where you stand with them. :>)
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?

Where tone and pitch mean nothing and changing the accent on one word can mean the difference between "Hi! How are you doing?" and "Get the [edited] away from me you pathetic loser!"

"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill

The same groups have been complaining about every violent video game. This one is just highlighted more because there is religion involved.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. - Douglas Adams

Guillermo del Toro is also working on Hellboy 2: The Golden Army which he decided to work on instead of Halo???

Madhouse Thought and The Minority Report

But sometimes you just want to sit down and whack things for an hour. Great stress reliever: no strategy, no thinking, just blast things to hell - in this case literally.

Cheers,
Scott in Indy

But sometimes you just want to sit down and whack things for an hour. Great stress reliever:

This is a family site!... j/k ;0)

Madhouse Thought and The Minority Report

You can get PrBoom and Freedoom to run in it all free.
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Run like Reagan!

As a Heavy Fighter, I get to go out and beat people with a big stick every weekend (and then some when we have events going on...).
Real people. Real stick.

"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal comfort... has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill

What would they say ?

You're right about it being bad press. But Thats the press its not the game or the Christians. Lets face it how can you compare kids playing a video game with kids strapping on suicide vests. Theres a big difference the press ignores.

Tom, Jerry, the anvil, frying pan and piano didn't scar me. I played the original wizardy, and wolfenstein can't say I know anyone that had the urge to climb into an underground tunnel system and kill things.

P.S. Just out of curiosity how many Jewish kids do you think will play this game just make their parents heads explode ? Or muslims for that matter ?

Well, yeah, the violence isn't real but what would anyone defending the game think about one in which players got to be KKKers lynching Blacks, or Al Qaida terrorists blowing up Western cities and assasinating American leaders?

There's already a bunch of games about thug gang members selling drugs, stealing cars and shooting people. That stuff happens every single day. If I don't like a game, I won't buy it for myself or anybody else. Seems simple enough.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

"It's kinda bad press to have a game that portrays Christisns as a bunch of murderous thugs."

Movies and games have been portraying Christians and Europeans as murderous thugs for years and years. I think they're used to the 'bad press'.

"but what would anyone defending the game think about one in which players got to be KKKers lynching Blacks"

Or a game where you murder cops. Oh wait, we've had some of those, and they've been wildly successful.

And as the Grand Theft Auto series shows, they don't have a problem with murderous thugs qua murderous thugs.

These hypocrites are fine with most objectionable behavior, it's just there are certain 'protected classes' against which no objectionable behavior may be directed.

Thus, I'm inclined to loudly laugh and their demands the game be pulled and hope it shows up on shelves. Not that I'm inclined to buy it, it looks like it would be a poor game: ie, one that is not fun.

Grand Theft Auto was a very fun game, and I haven't yet gone out and stolen cars or shot cops. Maybe the thought police should just back off and let people make their own choices?

I was looking forward to something a little more Old Testament.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

SimEarth should take care of your world-smiting needs, heh.
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Run like Reagan!

Isn't that a 320x200 MCGA DOS game? I know I had that one, but I didn't care much for it because of the whole Gaia thing.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

I spent hours and hours on it, long ago. Whether messing around, or trying to evolve a top-technology-level robot civilization, good times.
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Run like Reagan!

Good times back then. :D

one of the very first "controversial' computer games. I don't remember the name but you were an insane vietnam vet who went psycho and started killing people. They also had one called DOA where you ran over people with your car.

/Guess I was pretty sick when I was younger.-good times.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

although that was a movie (don't think there was a video game), but then I admit I don't play video games-I can't even watch them, because they make me car sick.

The kids are the only players around here, and we are just starting to nudge into some of the T rated games with the oldest.

Way back when. Running over stick figure people with your vector graphic car.

Or at least I remember watching my older brothers play it. Ahh, nothing like 1970s video games. (wiki link)
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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community

It has gotten to the point where I never buy a game without researching it first, since most of the stuff out there is junk and you can't return anything once it has been opened. On the rare occasions I break that rule, I always end up regretting it.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

The Hollywood computer game industry has lost all trust from me. Between the uninspired games, the atrocious code, and the deliberate privacy and security violations, I won't let that stuff on my computers anymore. Not unless I can do a full source audit on a whim.

I do yet trust the quality control of Sony and Nintendo, so games on their consoles are still open to me, heh.
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Run like Reagan!

It's the first Nintendo product I've ever owned. I had a PS and PS2 but I'm going nowhere near the PS3. I'm way past done with that lousy company.

I think they are going to have to do some serious price slashing on the PS3 next year just to try to salvage market share, and they are already losing money on every unit that goes out the door. Nintendo actually makes about $40 on every unit they sell... pretty unbelievable for the console industry.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

The component costs for the thing is insane. A Blu-Ray player alone(let alone the rest of the stuff the PS3 is packing) can cost over $1000! I read an estimate somewhere that at the current pricing, Sony is taking a $200-300 loss on every console sold. Unless the parts have a drastic drop in price, I don't see the PS3's price going down anytime soon.

On a somewhat related note, I just got an 360. Microsoft's console by far has the best online system going for it. Xbox Live is very nice, and there are a lot of game demos I can try for free, which is great since the average game price is going up. On top of that, the arcade lets me play small little simple games for a small price(Dig Dug was like $5). And the new XNA studio thing will actually give people the ability to create Xbox 360 games for a much-lower-than-average entry costs.

This round of the console wars will be bloody, and good for consumers, imo.

It would take $2,500 computer match what my $400 Xbox 360 can do. Console manufactures make their money on games (Xbox 360 games are $60 apiece).

You are right about the Blu-Ray. In the end, if the system fails, it will be because Sony be the farm on putting a $1000 BR player in PS3.

Evil prevails only when good men do nothing.

The Playstation was of marginal quality, like most of their products, and the PS2 is not a durable item either. Mine overheats when playing DVDs, sot hat it skips after a while for crying out loud.

The PS3 should not exhibit those problems though, because they're banking heavily on it to carry the Bluray format through to success over HD-DVD.

So actually one reason I'm inclined to get a PS3 is so that I'l have something that works before my PS2 breaks down, heh. Of course, I need to be sure my PS3 will play all my PS2 games, including this one and this one. Yes, I installed a fliptop on my PS2 so that I can play Stellvia, a game surely never coming to the US, and so that I could play Space Harrier without waiting for the US release, heh.

I really want a Wii though. I've always been a fan of Nintendo's innovation. Not that I had a Virtual Boy, but I like innovation. And the Wii controller concept excites me.

Plus, my brother's not going to be buying a Zelda this time around, so I won't get to borrow it to try it as I got to for Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. I've come full circle: He played my Zelda and Link to the Past, I played his OoT and WW, and now he's likely going to end up playing my copy of whatever the new one is called.

I could get the Gamecube version, true, and borrow his Gamecube... but who wants to get it for the wrong system? heh
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Run like Reagan!

I know Sony's doing the brilliant thing* and ending region locking for the Playstation 3, but does anyone know whether the console honors region locks for the PS2 and PS games?

* It's brilliant because console modifications are patronized by the people who rely on copyright infringement, but they're given 'cover' by people like me who want to import games.

By ending imports as reason to modify there's now no legitimate reason for modifying the console. Actually, doing development would be a reason, too, but the PS3 lets you install your own OS, too, so even that's no excuse.

It's perfect. No more cover for the software copyright infringers and their reverse engineering associates.
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Run like Reagan!

You have fair use rights which copy protection denies you.

There is also the you bought it. Its yours aspect. Unless you agree to restrictions before the sale they have no right to try and enforce them after.

I am exceptionally resentful of companies having a business model and then feeling they have the right to get the government make it work for them. If they want to sell the units at a loss thats fine. Gillete does this on their own why should we grant these people special rights ?

Do you think it right that car companies should be able to prevent diagnostic codes for vehicles from being published ? What about sale prices ?

This is an ugly ugly big government matter.

P.S. A disclaimer the last console I owned was a 2600. I still write programs for it on an emulator.

The copyright infringers are the ones who 'trade' games by making copies and distributing them among each other.

Those people can use the same modification technology that the importers use. It's those people who are given cover by people like me.

That's what Sony has accomplished: it separated the good guys from the bad, and now it can hit the bad guys with no collateral damage and the consequences of that.
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Run like Reagan!

The cure is just much worse than the disease.

I remember hearing people whine that piracy would destroy the software industry as far back as when I built an Imsai. Usually its a salesmans excuse for not making their quarterly numbers. Or its a scheme to lock in users.

Look at Amdahl vs IBM.

I agree completely on the business model stuff. I'm the kind of guy who looks forward to HDMI-compatible adapters and hardware coming on the market that will disable the use restrictions.

It's just that, in the case of these video game copyright infringers, I have ZERO interest in seeing copyright laws changed to help them. I CHEER if Sony hits them, because they're worthless leeches who feel entitled to take, take, take. And since Sony has found a way of doing that without harming the honest users exercising their rights over their own purchases, I'm all for it.

If the MPAA had a way to hurt the infringers without hurting people like me, I'd be all for that, too.
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Run like Reagan!

I would suspect that the PS3 will also enforce region coding, at least on PS2 games.

One thing I really like about the Wii is the lack of loading times, on both Wii and GC games. Every single game I had for the PS2 (and PS before that) had annoying loading times. I even installed a hard disk in mine to fix this (running the games off that instead of the CD)... it does make a difference, but not enough. I got a game that has a mode where each level lasts maybe 30 seconds. It's got easily about 8-10 seconds of loading every time you play a level. Running off the hard drive, it is maybe 3 seconds... still unacceptable. I hear the PS3 is no better in this regard.

As for the quality being better... I would be surprised. I had a $350 sony car mini disc player (a lot of money IMO, esp at the time) that lasted maybe 6 months before malfunctioning. It was not worth repairing. I have a 36" Trinitron that turns on by itself every once in a while in the middle of the night and has screwed up onscreen text. When I'm comparing electronics products, that brand-name went from being a plus to a big liability.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

If people will buy and play a game based on the Da Vinci Code, it seems reasonable to think there might be some sales here too. They even released that on several different platforms. It doesn't take much to pay for a low budget game... as evidenced by the hundreds of horrible tycoon games out there (Prison Tycoon, anybody? Game Tycoon?).
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

It might be the only violent game some kids would be able to get their parents to buy for them.

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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community