lazygecko

This probably differes a lot from person to person, and I'm not sure whether you were implying that Metroid Prime wasn't very compelling. Personally I was more interested in the Combine and City 17 rather than Alyx and her friends in Half-Life 2. Overambitious game designers will always exist in the industry, no matter how powerful hardware we get. The trick is, as Peter Molyneux learned the hard way, is to not announce any ideas until you are sure they are implemented and work in the game. It's no secret that Sony likes to completely overstate the capabilities of their hardware though. Also, Hideo wanted to end MGS at the second installment. The sales said otherwise though, and I'm sure history will repeat itself for number four. I bet he's crying. All the way to the bank.

Metroid Prime is more about the world around you than the main plot itself, much like the Elder Scrolls games.

Several games have shown that very simple additions can do a lot to spice things up. There's the timed buttons in Shenmue and Resident Evil 4, simply letting the player walk around in Half-Life, and of course dialog trees which trigger different reactions.

http://www.ripten.com/2008/06/25/cliffyb-calls-metal-gear-passive-entertainment/ What he essentially means is that a game that focuses so much on a plot that constantly takes control away from the player defeats the entire point of the medium. This is a viewpoint I have championed over the years, and I'm glad an industry profile is finally shedding some light on it too. If you cannot properly tailor a plot to the gameplay experience, it's just poor design IMO.

DVDs were on the market around 96/97. It took a good amount of time before people had universally switched from VHS.

http://kotaku.com/5018899/sony-lost-...cing-imbalance In practice a new console isn't cheaper than a gaming PC, but due to market expectations you can't really sell one at such a price. A $600 launch price wasn't really enough to attract consumers. There's nothing unusual about losses when releasing a console, it's viewed as an investment in getting a foothold on the market and is compensated through license costs on games. But now Sony doubts if they will ever recover from the PS3. This, along with the huge success of the Wii, I think gives some insight on how the future of the industry is going to look. The hardware has to become more cost-effective.

Quality Assurance, ie beta testing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7458479.stm In this BBC article the earliest known instance of music being programmed directly on a computer can be traced back to 1951. Pretty significant seeing as it predates even most types of electronic music.

The CD version was awesome if only for having a politician character that threw red tape at people.

So it has been revealed who is scoring the soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCXAKvScQM4

"Why? Why did you do this to me?"

It's pretty good, and some songs also throw a nod to classic Conan tracks like Anvil of Crom and The Orgy.

http://protodudesrockmancorner.blogspot.com/ -Rockman 9 will feature a retro 8-bit art style, a homage to the earlier games. -Two playable characters: Rockman and Blues (ProtoMan). Each has their own unique storylines. - A popular belief is that RM9 will act as the 'link' to the events of the X Series. This is not so, The storyline DOES NOT lead into the X Series, rather it's a 'traditional' plot. -Many new characters, new Robot Masters and maybe some new supporting characters. -Gameplay is reminiscent of Rockman 3-6. -Online components: Leader boards and some unknown form of online play -RM9 will be on all major home consoles: Wii, X360 and PS3. X360 and PS3 users will be able to purchase the game from their respective download services. It's unknown how the Wii version will work, whether it will be a downloaded game or not Still, you can't help but feel that Capcom is treating it like a second-rate title by making it a downloadable title.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfu456Z_ZUE Man. All this stuff is possible with just the demo, I can't even imagine what you can accomplish with the full thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kAAUxm9NUs

A couple of months back during the series' 20th anniversary there was some book released in Japan, one of the pages in it hinted at a new classic game. Now yesterday, this entry was added to The Classification Board and Classification Review Board (AFAIK the Australian equivalent to ESRB and PEGI). Perhaps the positive response from Bionic Commando and Street Fighter IV made them reconsider the whole Battle Network/Star Force shit no one cares about.

Hating EA and Madden makes you so cool and non-conformist.

The raiding aspect is the only "addicting" part of WoW. I have never seen an addict who isn't a hardcore raider. When you put so much time, resources and effort into coordinating a group of 40/25 people for hours upon hours, it's easy to view it as something much more than just a game.

My account got hacked twice last month when an 0day flash security hole was mass-exploited (rendering all the usual countermeasures for trojans and keyloggers useless). Now my account is locked pending investigation, and I've heard many others have had to wait up to several months, sometimes without even getting their items back. If it's going to take that long I probably won't continue playing. Not until Lich King is out anyway.

Something like that should either be done really fucking good (IE better than 90% of what we hear in commercial efforts) or not done at all. If I hear any VA less than stellar in RPGs I feel that the experience is actually worse than what it would have been if I had just read text. Localized japanese games are usually massive fail on voices, even Square who can afford some more reputable actors. Not to mention how long these games get delayed by that.

The article seems to imply that it will use remixes straight from the OCR catalouge, which I kind of doubt.

No. The real devil is comparing hardware power by ports.

Uwe Boll is the industry's most successful troll. I salute him and how he managed to get all these forum posters eating out of his hand.

They might have used music from a movie or from a stock library. People do it all the time.

AFAIK game designers usually end up where they are from handling other parts of development like programming or level design. It's important to have good insight in those fields so you can properly communicate your ideas with the rest of the team.