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| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=23180 |   Swatt (25) Dec 09, 2010 - 07:06 am » Edited on Dec 09, 2010 - 07:08 am
| | Regardless of how you feel about single player only, it would be difficult to argue that Games like Bioshock, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and many others would see absolutely no benefit from Multiplayer. If it adds time and expense to the development of the game, it would most certainly detract from the end product. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22691 | Swatt (25) Apr 09, 2010 - 08:37 am
| This game is a travesty. A mockery of what PC gaming has become in recent years. The worst part is that most people will blindly pay the inflated prices and never bat an eye.
It is a slippery slope. First activision charged 59.99 for console versions. Then MW2 was kicked up to 59.99 (and still is i might add) and sold like crazy. Now activision/blizzard are releaseing 1/3rd of a game to the tune of 59.99.
I encourage anyone out there to refrain from this purchase. Don't blindly follow the hype. Blizzard is simply releasing the same game with a facelift. Is better graphics worth it for the same gameplay we got over ten years ago?
I would also remind you that this is merely 1/3rd of a game. Regardless of how long the "missions" take in relation to the first, that dosen't change the fact that blizzard has stated that this is only 1/3rd of a game. This means you are NOT spending 60 dollars on a game. But actually will be paying 180 dollars for this game!
This one, I will skip. If this will be commonplace for blizzard going forward. I will skip all of their games.
I wouldn't be surprised if you get charged monthly for playing on battle.net for their upcoming games as well.
I understand that companies need to make money, but nickel and diming their customers will only spark anger in their communities. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/70211/1628 | Swatt (25) Jan 16, 2009 - 02:11 pm
| I can understand the point that you want to make in this article but wish you would have taken a little more time in articulating what you wanted to say.
The black and white of the matter is that piracy is piracy is piracy regardless of how many people you may or may not share or charge for it. The real questions are about the penalties regarding the infringements and other consequences such as DRM (which I won't go into here.)
Usually piracy numbers are far overblown because every illegally downloaded copy is counted as a lost sale when that is rarely the case. Again, these are issues that are brought up time and time again.
I actually wrote a relatively similar article earlier if you wanted to check it out. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21159 | Swatt (25) Jan 09, 2009 - 12:39 pm
| I think its stupid to even include the community in a simple artistic choice that could "and SHOULD" be handled internally. If you want to include your community, give them a REAL voice.
Considering that both models and choices are available it seems that we will likely see both units show up at some point. Blizzard will probably just make us pay for all three "games" to "unlock" the additional units.
Money grubbing punks is what I say. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21150 | Swatt (25) Jan 08, 2009 - 08:53 am
| I think the article is completely off base. What I believe is FAR more likely than Desktop PC's going away is Laptops going away. The reason I say that is because of the emerging trend in Cell phones. Cell phones today are capable of doing many of the things that people do on their Laptops now. The trend suggests that this will continue expanding. Take phones like the iPhone and the Blackberry Storm. They can take care of all your media needs on the go while still providing you with email, spreadsheets, documents, and PDF's on the go. There are also downloadable programs and applications to further enhance these devices. To top it all off, they are FAR easier to carry around than a laptop, and aren't limited to WiFi hotspot zones but rather full cellphone networks with coverage across most of the country.
I would defiantly say the laptop is in bigger trouble than the desktop.
To top that off, the emerging trend in desktops suggest that HTPC's and entertainment is on the rise and due to the price difference, desktops are likely to be the primary choice for these applications.
I think first we will see greater synchronization between Desktop to Laptop to Smartphone and slowly we will see the laptop fade away as the smartphone becomes more prominent. I don’t think any of these things are going to happen too quickly. Perhaps 2 years… perhaps more.
That’s my 2 cents at least. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20983 | Swatt (25) Nov 05, 2008 - 09:45 am
| » So stoopid.
I remember when the UT demo came out. I'm talking UT99. It was so badass that I knew i had to buy the game. Everyone who I got to download and play the demo ended up buying that game. To say that demo's aren't worth it just means that they don't have enough confidence in their game to lay it out there. Instead they just want to f*** you over with a game you can't return if it sucks. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61831/745 | Swatt (25) Nov 04, 2008 - 03:59 pm
| Man, Deus Ex is probably my favorite single player FPS game. Admittedly I’ve only played thru it a handful of times, but there is a level of open endedness while still giving you a clear path that simply isn't present in a lot of games.
The interactions with so many characters were great and the fact that you could kill off major characters in certain parts of the story and the story would still continue forward was really amazing.
It's these kind of character interactions that were sorely missing from Bioshock. You're right, overall Bioshock is enjoyable, but it just loses so much of its flair by mid game that it makes it hard to call truly "great."
Of course, this is all just my opinion. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61831/745 | Swatt (25) Nov 04, 2008 - 03:54 pm
| | I read thru your write-up and seems like we are really on the same page. I just can't believe that they thought an "immersive" world wouldn't hold any characters to interact with. By "interact" I mean more than just shoot, burn, electrocute, or bludgeon. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20888 | Swatt (25) Sep 30, 2008 - 02:06 pm
| This man speaks the truth. I played thru GoW on the 360 in ONE SITTING. There was NO reason to play the game over again for me. It was a fun play thru and all, but once was all it took. I didn't feel the need to play the the "new" sequence in the PC version.
Oh, and for the record, I BOUGHT original unreal (pc) UT99 (PC) ut2003 (PC) ut2004 (PC) and currently ut3 (PC)
BTW, UT3 was a HUGE dissappointment for me. They claimed PC first for the development on UT3, but it very clearly is a console port. It plays like one, it looks like one, its slow, and it sucks... just like most console shooters. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20198 | Swatt (25) Mar 28, 2008 - 01:34 pm
| I think he’s half right. I believe that ultimately a Unified gaming/pc platform will eventually take hold. Sony and Nintendo will fight and fight but because Microsoft is already in the PC end and the 360 is doing well, we are likely to see things eventually shift to a Microsoft centric gaming space. I think that to put an arbitrary date on it like 10 years is ambitions. This could easily take twice that or half that depending on what the market does and what new technologies arrive from the hardware folks.
To simply say that "consoles will die" is a bad way of explaining that we are moving toward a more unified system.
The only thing holding the unified system back is the fact that it means there will be 2 big losers who are likely to be Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo could easily make the switch to developing peripherals and software for a new unified gaming platform, but Sony would be up sh!t creek since they only do the hardware side. Needless to say, unless someone wants to write some really big checks to Nintendo and Sony things aren't going to change that quick.
Quick note on a unified system. It is VERY pro-consumer. No more exclusive titles. Fewer compatibility issues. Spending $900 on a single system/pc/media center/gaming device in a 3 - 5 year period instead of 200 - 600 per system + whatever PC stuff you keep buying. I dunno, but sounds pretty attractive to me... Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19818 | Swatt (25) Mar 06, 2008 - 03:17 pm
| The group of us that put it on were from all walks of life including somone who was in marketing and another person who worked at the cable company in our area. We got some really good free advertising that way. Otherwise it was a lot of flyers, posters, and getting "in" with the local gamestop so we could get them to help promote us.
Ultimately, the marketing side of things was hugely frustrating. Your best bet will likely be your local news station and local newspaper. If you can get a couple of "articles" out of them in the weeks leading up to your event then you will reach a lot of people. Getting an online forum set up to help cultivate a community helps too. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19818 | Swatt (25) Mar 04, 2008 - 09:43 am
| I've never been to any lan with more than 200 people. I used to organize one in my area and the most we ever had was right about 200. They are a lot of fun but a ton of work.
I'd really like to make it to PAX sometime, but I live in the midwest and can neither afford the time off, gas, plane ticket, or other transportation necessary to get out there. Also being married with a full time job makes it tough as well.
The demographis of the United states are a little tricky to do a large lan. Most "countries" that have really big lans are typically about 1/20th the size of the united states. A better solution would be about 4 regional lans instead. Kinda a tour type thing. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61831/301 | Swatt (25) Mar 19, 2007 - 10:45 am
| The original article actually included a section on the triplehead2go from matrox, but i didn't have near the time to polish that section to the calibur of the rest of the article. In fact, the rest of the article didn't even get as much time as it deserved. I won't lie that I didn't double check my numbers and that the original test setup included Half life 2, F.E.A.R., BF2, and UT2004 (the latter not supporting widescreen natively) not to mention other resolutions, but given the amount of time I had to commit to the article, its overall quality suffered.
Thanks again to everyone for reading. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61831/301 | Swatt (25) Mar 14, 2007 - 08:24 pm » Edited on Mar 14, 2007 - 08:33 pm
| Hey Guys, Thanks for the comments.
Ag4life, I actually took price and size into account when selecting resolutions and panels (also that my friend had the widescreen model while I own the standard model.) What I found was that for the price, these two resolutions were the most common native resolutions. With the verticle resolution being so close to the same, it made the most sense to keep the tests simple and only do these common resolutions.
Initially I had intended to run in many resolutions including comparisons in 1280 x 768 to 1024 x 768 (which would have made for a much better test) but I didn't have the time to spend working on getting the programs to run properly in these resolutions.
Trogdor, I agree that there are many other perfectly valid resolutions to choose from, however, these resolutions were the native resolutions of the panels chosen and also are very common resolutions among other panels of this size and price.
Also, and sadly, I do not have the resources to test other hardware as this is my system and the only one I have with a PCI express video card. I could have used a 9700, 5900, and 6600GT all agp cards with a 2500+ CPU, but that would have been far too involved and a relatively invalid test when it comes to new games.
I would have loved to test more games and more resolutions, but the simple fact of the matter is that I didn't have the time or resources. I am completely aware that there is room for improvement with the article, but I'm afraid that this was all I could muster under the circumstances.
I probably could have included more information about the difficulties and choices I made within the article itslef. Maybe that would have helped ;-)
Thanks again everyone for the comments. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61831/198 | Swatt (25) Mar 03, 2007 - 08:08 am » Edited on Mar 03, 2007 - 08:26 am
| Thanks for the Comments xts, I believe you’re missing the point. Competition in games is what drives people to do better. It’s also a lot of fun. No where in the article did I say that competition was bad, only that it should be thru real skill with the game and not with exploitative behavior.
In a way your comments were extremely accurate in that games are currently rewarding bad behavior. For a long time the Honor System in WoW allowed for (and even encouraged) higher level or more experienced players to continuously exploit weaker or lower level players with no form or punishment whatsoever. I’m not talking about evenly matched players here but rather players that out leveled and out geared their opponents to make their victories a sure thing. The Gear discrepancy in original WoW and BG’s were outright crippling to the game and Blizzard clearly got the message from the community which is why many changes were brought about in BC.
In fact, other companied and many newer games like Battlefield 2 and 2142 are including much more robust systems for tracking stats other than straight kill counts. Unfortunately, this led to more exploitation in the system with point farming and such but as I indicated in the article some people will do whatever it takes to get ahead. The fact of the matter is that game developers are looking at these aspects and making changes to the way scores are measured only supports the idea the elitism and elitist behavior is a growing problem that threatens online gaming.
It’s really a touchy subject and there are a lot of different views to be taken into account. It ended up being a much more difficult topic to write about than I originally had predicted. I’m moderately pleased with the end result and sincerely hope people don’t take it for a rant rather than a serious article about a serious issue (in my opinion).
Thanks again for the comments everyone. Flag this | Edit this post |
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