drqshadow

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Posts posted by drqshadow

  1. But even so, when making a review, when you bring up past games you should go with the population's overall opinion on the game, not your own and then pass it off as the population's overall opinion.

    Wasn't trying to "pass anything off" but you got the idea. Those were all my own opinions of the games and mechanics in question, bottom line. My intention was to introduce the idea that everyone has their own short list of favorites and undesireables, an idea that's been reinforced in these posts, and then present a few examples from my own lists. The only game I referred to in a semi-universal tone was FFXI, which nobody's taken issue with yet. Personally, I think of V as the all-time low point for the series, and its low quality and strangely divergent gameplay was probably one of the reasons it wasn't released in America until several years later.

    Really, if you disagree with my evaluations of those games, chances are good that you won't agree with my opinion of FFXII. Out of curiosity, which would you call your least favorite? I just have trouble imagining a numbered FF (Mystic Quest or X-2 don't count) that's worse than V.

  2. I don't like the idea of Frank as the new Cap, mostly because he's been so successfully removed from the superhero world with the MAX series. The Punisher's no fun when he's integrated into the mainstream Marvel universe. I hated him in Civil War, because it wasn't the same character I follow in his own title month-to-month.

  3. 300 director Zack Snyder's next project is Watchmen, and this is a test shot of Rorschach, which he included in the trailer as an Easter Egg. (By the way, click the image for a much larger version.)

    Holy Shit!!!!!

    I have Rorschach as my picture on MySpace. I want to be him for Halloween, but can't figure out how to make the mask. That pic looks like they made it out of a heavy material, like burlap.

    I did a quick shadows / highlights tweak to make the mask a bit more visible, thought everyone might enjoy seeing it as well...

    Rorschach.jpg

  4. Sometimes a box comes up and says you don't have permission to do that, and you need to log in as administrator. The thing is you will get this even if you are logged in as administrator. To fix it you have to right click the program, and select "run as administrator".

    Yeah, OSX does something like that initially too. Extremely annoying.

    Speaking of which, I got a new Macbook Pro this weekend. :D

  5. San Andreas had a lot of subtle changes, actually. Not only was it about 3x the size of VC, but they added the customization engine, (changing your wardrobe, hair, weight, etc.) they reworked the battle / gunfight engine, they added new vehicles and really brought it with the story. Granted, most of these changes weren't for the better, but it wasn't the same game as Vice or Liberty.

  6. I thought the artwork was absolutely beautiful, probably some of Jae Lee's best stuff, but just could not get into the story. It felt awfully slow, word-heavy and dull upon my first read and I'm debating removing it from my saver.

  7. Interesting story about the logistics behind a price drop for both the PS3 and the 360:

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070205-8767.html

    PS3 and the 360: The race to 65nm

    There have always been game consoles that competed directly against each other for sales, market share, and third-party support. Today, the battle is very much between Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, with Nintendo opting to play a different kind of game with the Wii. As the 360 and PS3 are closely matched in terms of performance and the types of games they play, the winner may be the company that reduces the cost of their platform the fastest.

    One of the best ways to reduce manufacturing costs of any high-end electronic devices is to use a die shrink, where a more fine-grained optical process allows more transistors to be packed into the same area. In the case of a game console, the same number of transistors can be delivered in a smaller area and with lower power dissipation, lowering the cost of manufacturing the console by lowering the cost per-chip and cutting down on the amount of active cooling needed.

    For both the 360 and PS3, the big move is from a 90nm process to a 65nm one. Sony indicated in a recent press conference that the company had already started production of parts of the PS3 chipset on a 65nm process. Microsoft had previously announced, along with its manufacturing partner Chartered Semiconductor, that the Xbox CPU would be moving to 65nm Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology in the first quarter of 2007, although there are rumors that this migration may not be complete until the second quarter.

    How much could each company save by this migration? A report in the Chinese-language paper Commercial Times estimates that Microsoft could reduce the cost of the CPU, northbridge, and GPU on the 360 from about $200 to $150 with a 65nm migration. The research firm iSuppli estimated that the total bill-of-material (BOM) cost of the Premium Xbox 360 is down to about $323 from $525 at launch, which would significantly help Microsoft's margins.

    iSuppli puts the BOM cost of the premium PS3 at $840, which means Sony is losing as much as $240 on each unit. A similar component price reduction from the move to a 65nm process would lower this loss to under $200 per console.

    If Sony completes the transition first, it will allow the company to execute the much-rumored price drop on the PS3, which can't come soon enough for Sony's flagship console. The PS3 sold well out of the gate but sales have tapered off as the non-early-adopting public waits for more compelling games and a lower sticker price. As for the 360, it has sold moderately well so far, with Microsoft estimating 10.4 million units delivered to retailers, but if Microsoft wants to maintain their lead over the PS3 they will likely have to drop their price as well. Microsoft has been coy about discussing any 360 price drops, although they did once say that consumers could expect one cut per year.

    It is worth noting that Nintendo also benefited from process shrinks with the Wii, although their strategy was to take similar technology from the GameCube with more modest improvements (a higher clock speed, mostly) and gain the cost benefit of the die shrink right away. So far, their gamble has paid off, as Wiis continue to be in short supply.

  8. It's seriously getting difficult to avoid buying a Wii at this point. I still want a 360 first, but the price difference and the wife's interest in the Nintendo system is making that struggle even tougher. Come on, Microsoft. Drop the price so I can buy something.

  9. Ha, whatever. I'd put up with about two quarters' worth of continues before I walked away from that machine. The player made the fight drag on about a minute longer than he needed to, too... the boss was about dead when he quit firing and just floated around for a little bit.

    And that's not even the end of the game...