Well, it had to happen eventually. GIA has gone bannerific. I'm sure some of you are dismayed at the sight of banners on our site. Hell, I know I don't like the things. Clunky, slow loading, and hell, I just loaded up my own column, and found myself face-to-face with freaking Sinbad. It's a little jarring. But time wounds all heels, and while I wish we could keep GIA bannerless and free as a bird forever and ever, it's just not practical. The amount of money that the staff, mostly AV, have footed to keep us running is just phenomenal, and we need some way to recoup those expenses, as well as fund any further expansion. I'm not sure how effective this plea will be, but I'll make it anyhow: please click the banners. It keeps GIA breathing. We're not greedy here - the odds of us seeing any sort of profit out of this site within the year are roughly zero. But it lets us keep doing what we're doing, and not end up begging on the streets for food. | DVD education | Allan, A DVD-ROM (Read-Only) does not require a caddy, since you are 1) not writing to disc, or 2) handling the very, VERY delicate blank. DVD-ROM drives in computers operate in the same fashion as do the home theatre variety. I know, since I have both. A DVD-RAM (Random-Access, or Read/Write) DOES require a caddy. A DVD blank is possible the most delicate piece of medium to come down the pike in a long while, if not ever. As Arpad stated, a single fingerprint or smudge is enough to throw off the writing process to such a degree than the entire disc will be rendered unusuable. This is a bad thing, since the discs are excessively pricey at the moment. This is why they are kept in loading caddies. In case you are thinking of getting a DVD-RAM (often known as DVD Writers) you might want to hold off on that purchase. Most of them cost more than cars, and the blanks have been known to be bigger than the paycheque of most North American teenagers. The writers run in the eight to ten thousand dollar ranger, while the blanks are often upwards of one hundred dollars each. Is copying a movie that important to you? It'd be cheaper to pay the copyright fines than pay for the DVD Writer drive right now. ~Shawners (I'm changing my legal name! Contact me at shawners@ameritech.net with suggestions!!) |
Ah... I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. Thanks for the clarification, Shawners. As for a new name, hmm... well, you could certainly capture some attention by renaming yourself Karl Marx. And then you'd have a great angle to use when hitting on his very hot great-granddaughter, Katarina Marx. Rowr. Who knew socialism could be so sexy? | Confidence games and compatibles | Okay, here goes. The PSX2 has one thing that neither the Dreamcast nor the N2000, or whatever it's called, can or has boasted; Backwards compatability. Complete backwards compatability, in fact. Nintendo can't offer this, and Sega won't, for whatever reason... probably because they have nothing truly worthwhile to be backwards compatible with (apart from panzer dragon saga). Here's the question: Will backwards compatability make it easier for companies to develop games for the PSX2. It seems to be that the biggest difference between the PSX2 and the PSX is power, rather than medium, a la N64 to N2000. But maybe I'm wrong. I hope not. In any case, I look forward to playing BOF3 on my PSX2 and have much shorter loading times. None, maybe. -MikMok PS. Is it just me, or does Sega have a real self-confidence problem? As soon as a system gives any hint of doing badly, they trash it, stomp on it, bury it and deny that it ever existed. This makes people cynical. |
Backwards compatibility probably won't help PSX2 development too much. In order to compete in the scaled-up development environment that PSX2 games will be springing from, the old tricks from PSX programming, while potentially available, just won't cut it. In order to have a cutting-edge title, or even one that stands up as a mediocre PSX2 title, companies are going to have to really get to know the new system, instead of relying on backwards compatibility. As for Sega, well, they don't have so much of a self-confidence problem, as one of a short attention span. They're very, very eager to move on to the Next Big Thing, and leave previous projects and systems writhing in the dust. In some ways, they seem to treat the console industry like the arcade industry, where being the cutting edge, the new machine, is the way to make the money. Despite the success of the Genesis, they still don't seem to understand that it's not how powerful a system is, it's what games is has on it. They're too eager to be on the cutting edge, and it causes abandonment syndrome with their consumers. | Clarification and definitions | Hey Allan, I love video games. I think they're the best thing ever. I play them everyday. I own more video games than anyone I know. Can I be a hardcore gamer? - Gamer4Life |
Sure you can! Just slice off one of your own nipples, put it in a pickle jar for six weeks. Then remove the nipple, dab it gently with mauve paint, do the Funky Chicken in a circle around the nipple for a good twenty minutes, then swallow the nipple. If your nipple regrows, but the tip of it is now tinted mauve, you have passed the trials, and are a true hardcore gamer. If it does not, you will have to live with the shame that you aren't a hardcore gamer. | Metal Marines or death | Here's an idea for the vault: an obscure little gem known to theEnlightened as God, and to the heathen as Metal Marines. You don't knowwhat I'm talking about, do you? Of course not. None of you fools have heardof Metal Marines. Consult the man on the street, the average Joe justwalking by on his way to work. He hasn't heard of Metal Marines, either.What he HAS heard of is Command & Conquer: Red Alert, that BLEEDING IDIOTICPOINTLESS PIECE OF PORCUPINE FECES, that bastard child of the greatCommand and Conquer, that festering boil on the face of the planet. Twoexpansion packs! Two! For that stupid, stupid game! Oh yes, your man on thestreet has heard of Red Alert, he'll go to work and talk to the guys by thewater cooler about it, then go home to his darling wife and two point threekids (little Lester had an unfortunate accident with the treshing machine)and oh yes, he'll play Red Alert, he'll play and enjoy and HOW DOES HE NOTSEE WHAT HE'S DOING? How can he not realize that every time he plays, hespits in the face of all that is good in this world? That with every mouseclick he stabs Metal Marines in the heart, smacks it about the chops with awet fish, and buries it in a cheap, ill-smelling coffin? He does notrealize that he dwells in the stench-pit of his own filth and overallbadness. No, I do not hate him, this man on the street. Indeed, I pity him.For he knows not the glory of Metal Marines, he dwells in darkness andknows not the light, but it is not too late for him. No, he can yet besaved, this wretched, twisted creature can yet be salvaged. Spread theword, dear brother! Spread the word of the joy and the light and the truthof one of the greatest SNES games ever! Let the darkness of filth anddecay, ignorance and depravity never again sully the face of the gamingcommunity! Tell of the most glorious strategy game that involves giantrobots with swords, and do it freakin' soon. Metal Marines is too great agame to go unrecognized. I really mean it. -Matt Linwong, Paradox Penguin |
Two comments. One, pleeeeeeeease paragraph. That's a big hunk of text, and it'll be a lot more readable if you break it into two paragraphs. Second, okay, fine, I'm going to try and find Metal Marines, and see what the fuss is about. I seem to have missed this little gem in my past perusals of the SNES library. Once I give it a fair shake, we'll see about Vaulting it. Okay? | Nintendo leads the way...? | Allan and Edna, sittin' a tree....hmmm...have to be an awfully smallelephant. Never mind. Anyway, in Tuesday's Double Agent column, specifically in the portionnear the bottom in the reply toMr. Dragona Akehi's (cool name) letterabout Nintendo, you mentioned that the company badmouthed polygonalgames as slow and unwieldy. Call me crazy, but considering Star Fox,Stunt Race FX and the other polygonal games on the SNES, as well as thehighly polygonal nature of N64 games, I'm thinking you meant CD-basedgames. Because to my knowledge, Nintendo wasn't real critical ofpolygonal technology. (Though I certainly remember, along with many anRPG fan, Yamauchi's little comment about how depressed and lonely we RPGplayers are. :-) Now that they have committed to the DVD technology for the upcomingProject Dolphin, will they recoup their RPG golden age? I was one ofthose people who went around trying to convince my friend's to playRPGs, trying to hype Squaresoft games and the guy who would always beimporting any good epic he could get his hands on and certainly, whilethe current PlayStation age is excellent and holds many a fantastic RPG,the SNES/SFC times truly blossomed with masterpiece after masterpiece.Do you think this could happen again now that Nintendo has a medium andperhaps a system that will be easier and more attractive to develop for?I'm sure it will need the classic things every system does: good price,killer apps, a high installed base, yada, yada, yada...can Nintendo getall the 3rd party developers again by having a good system alone? You mention how reluctant they are to follow trends and really, I'venever really heard of Nintendo begging developers to come to theirsystem and I'm not sure it would be needed, but if it was...obviously itwould be easier to convince them if they could give up their pride. Doyou think Nintendo has changed "enough" to seek this type of supportactively again? I suppose it all comes out to whether Square and Enixdecide whatever Project Dolphin becomes is a good plan for theirdevelopment efforts and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticedhow the other RPG players migrate to the system those two companieschoose--and with good reason, as it is often the best for creating thegreatest RPGs of the time. So if turns out Square has to be wooed overto Dolphin, do you think Nintendo will have the sense do so? Though really, I must (the tooth fairy said I have to or my wisdom teethwon't come out) quibble with you on your thought that their reluctanceto follow other's trends is so negative. I really don't think ifNintendo wasn't so staunchly interested in doing something differentconstantly than Fire Emblem, Earthbound, Onigashima, Marvelous, Pokemonand all the other great RPGs developed by them would have come about.Instead, you would have seen them compete with something similar to whatEnix and Squaresoft do. (Ah, I love using Squaresoft sometimes andSquare at others. Why? I don't know.) While Sony's hopping ontobandwagons has really been beneficial in terms of their system, theamount of obscure games which are translated (which never would haveearlier) and some quality games, the Spyros and Crash Kart Racings ofthis world aren't going to do us much good when they are clearly lookingonly to sell and not to enchant. -Link, go beyond reality.....and get me a bagel! (P.S. I thought the FFVIII translation at E3 was niiiice, if a bitstilted--better than ever before. You know, the original writing isn'tthat spectacular in the first place...) |
"The Spyros and the Crash Kart Racings of the world aren't going to do us much good when they are clearly looking only to sell and not to enchant." Great line, there. Maybe I should start having inset, enlarged text, highlighting especially good quotes from letters, like a Time magazine article. Anyhow, the "polygons suck" statement was erroneous, on my part. I was misrepresenting one of Nintendo's open policies, around the time that Killer Instinct was popular (remember those days?). At the time, Nintendo periodically commented that fully 3D fighting games were clumsy, and that KI was the pinnacle of fighting game quality, with dazzling 3D graphics no home system could match, plus easy-to-grasp traditional gameplay. Miyamoto made a very snide comment about Tekken, in particular, which I'll try and dig up for tomorrow. I'm not sure Nintendo will go with an active tack, trying to recapture lost developers. Whereas Sony | A very good reason to get Ehrgeiz | Quest mode? People bought Ehrgeiz for the quest mode? There's one reason,and one reason alone that I bought Ehrgeiz, and it consists of twowords.....shirtless Sephiroth. Well, that, and Vincent in his adorable Turks outfit. Oh, and the fact that there's a lot of grunting. (Sephy gruntz, anyone?) Everyone's favorite Dragoon, Jaana |
Chee hee hee. Okay, this letter just plain rocks. :) Being a heterosexual male, I sadly don't get the same thrill out of ogling shirtless Seph, but I can see it as being a plus for a game.
Closing comments Brad Williams points out that there have been huge cartridge sizes for years, bigger than Tales of Phantasia's 48 megabits. Namely, on the Neo Geo. Of course, the Neo Geo is expensive as all hell, especially the carts, but it's true, they existed. Legolas questions whether Nintendo's "quality, not quantity" policy was ever used in reference to non-Nintendo titles. It was. The whole idea of the policy first surfaced when the early release lists came out, and complaints came in that there were too few games, mostly reduxes of past Nintendo hits, and a few third-party titles. Enter "quality, not quantity." The argument took a major hit when Cruisin' USA and Killer Instinct Gold were released to mediocre-to-poor reviews, and has pretty much died by this point. But it really was used in reference to the whole N64 product line. And someone asked if we accept Vault entries from readers. Not as present, no. Sorry. In other news, I think I should hand Drew a fresher debate topic than system wars, for his weekend tenure, so everyone, feel free to send me really, really controversial letters tomorrow. How does "letters column etiquette" sound? ;) - Allan Milligan | | | |
