kisrael

When you say the pj compensates for bright light are you saying that you play with lights on or that it compensates for bright flashes in the picture? I have been using a pj for a few years and haven't noticed what your referring to. I am wondering if you are talking about a feature that can be disabled. I immediately thought of dynamic contrast ratio but I don't believe the HD65 has DCR. The HD65 is a pretty nice unit. It seems like something like dynamic contrast ratio... take something like EDF 2017 (great game btw) - split screen, one player does some insane explosive thing, so bright light is filling half the screen, both sides of the split screen compensate so the other player can barely see anything for a few moments. I hunted around the menus but couldn't find anything relevant. HD65 is pretty nice. It replaced my old InFocus ScreenPlay 4800, and while I felt a little fooled that it doesn't quite have the resolution for pure 1080p, it doesn't have that thing that the InFocus did where suddenly the contrast looks really great and the picture more detailed during a fade-to-black... I guess that's the contrast ratio? Anyway, fun to talk a little tech here, 'cause I'm not generally super hardcore about things - but I do love projectors

Thanks for the info My projector is an Optoma HD65... it accepts signals up to 1080p but its native resoultion is 1280x720, so I'll take your advice and set the Xbox at that. Yeah, I'm kind of ticked at GameStop... not only are they in the "hey get this awesome cable for only $50!" club that Best Buy, Radio Shack, and pretty much everyone are in, but they forget to mention that for the same price, the actual thing from Microsoft would give me more options. I think the VGA cables have a digital audio out along with L/R Stereo, so while the Stereo is good enough for now if I go for surroundish stuff it'll be pretty easy I think. Plus like I said, I have more monitors etc/ w VGA in than I do w/ HDMI. The one projector effect I wish I could 'fix'; it automatically compensates for really bright light, so in games w/ big explosions sometimes after the screen dims for a bit... (EDF 2017 had this all over the place) -- it's a cool and semi-realistic effect, but annoying and potentially in-game dangerous...

So, I thought I was "beating the system" by getting a $8 HDMI cable rather than than the $50 gamestop special (btw, it's pretty jawdropping what a fiasco that whole cable ripoff market is... thanks Monster Cable!) but neither had the red and white stereo outs (I use a projector w/o speakers or audio out) that the $50 360 plug has. So I was thinking about going ahead and upgrading to an HDMI-capable sound system, but the only ones w/ pass throughs seemed pretty expensive. Then I saw another option, the $40 VGA cable, w/ stereo line out. Before opening the package, I did some research, and it seems like VGA compares pretty well w/ HDMI. Despite feeling that it might be good to upgrade past component, I'm not THAT much a picture wonk, and it seems like most people think VGA is as good or better. Is there any reason to think I'm seriously missing out by going VGA instead of HDMI? If nothing else I have more potential screens that have VGA in than have HDMI plugs...

What's the co-op mode in this like??

Heh. The funny thing is I never get good enough at these games to reliably know if I was playing bots or people, especially with "low information" games where you don't know where everyone is...

Whaddya mean "the same question"? EDIT: Oh, you STILL didn't link to the poll that started this thread, http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3194 -- jeez, learn to link in a forum! Still, without knowing how the population who voted "Wii" last year got a Wii, this is almost meaningless! Or it goes to show you, not that many people actually bothered to get a PS3.

Unfortunately I don't have a great space to use the Wii Fit I got. Thinking about ways of coping with that. Just trying it once, I almost think it doesn't have enough direction, like what kind of exercises to pick etc. I've ordered a PC version of YOurself!Fitness to compare with it...

I think "terrible" is overstating it, but you seem to like complaining as much as I seem to like complaining about complaining, so we'll call it even. Just for grins I put on Vice City... I don't know if the 360 emulation is wonky or what, but I was AMAZED at how much worse it felt... running around seemed odd and sped up, the streets seemed practically empty, the driving physics were totally cartoonish and simplistic... I was in the "gee, GTA 4 isn't THAT much better camp" but I think actually going back to those earlier renditions is eye-opening. The city would be cooler if Time Square was even more crowded, and there are too many "creep slowly through the building and kill every MFer in the place" missions, but over all this game is very, very good.

Mercenaries 2

A. Are we talking the "Do you plan to buy a new gaming system before the end of the year?" poll? (PROTIP: when linking to something via a URL where the content is sure to change, try describing the content!) B. The poll is what do you plan to get, not what's best, or what do you already have... unlike some previous times, everyone who wants a Wii probably has had the chance to buy one. The spike for PS3 may represent its cost coming down, its blu-ray strategy paying off, some promising games for it, people thinking they'll try to get it but maybe still won't, or a combination of the 4...

Atari was never great at making a common thread across games. Nintendo had Mario, Intellivision had that running man animation... probably the closest is how a lot of their 80s and 90s arcade games have a certain similarity in the sound library they use... Part of it is the real heyday were so early, so it might be harder to get a certain mascot or look and feel separate from the hardware's distinctiveness -- each game reinvented the wheel, so to speak... and then for the 2600, 5200, and 7800 too much of the focus was on arcade ports.

I think the one tragedy of 2600 Warlords is that one weird advantage the lower right player has, how if the upper right player does the "easy move" of whipping to the right wall and firing, the ball bounces bounces bounces and then out without killing the king...

While the whole "I wish I didn't have to go get up and turn off the system" of later posters seems a little over sedentary to me, I do agree with the original concept. And to further the gripe, even if I have to use a Wii-mote, why can't I just do it with the crosspad? So many times I'll set up the Wii for a GC game and would skip the sensor bar, but no, heaven forbid I just navigate with buttons. Either they're trying to show off the laser pointer-ish ability, or they want to force people so they don't get too far into the system without knowing how to point, or they're just dumb. Then again, navigation in general is a huge mess on the Wii. Start was easy. Everyone knew what Start did; it paused, and maybe gave you some options. If you could quit the game, you could do it from the start menu. But now it's a crapshoot. Maybe +, Maybe -, Maybe pressng and holding one or the other... And then friend codes seem like they don't really want people to play with friends online. In general, both Mii support and even "assign a player to a control" could just use a lot more standards and best practices. It's such a mismash! Great system but in putting all the new controller stuff in they kind of left out the details.

HA! You know what, for the first time in YEARS I was trying to think of "Too Close for Comfort"... it was the cows in the Wii game "Boom Blox" that made me think of it, Monroe talking about how his talent with drawing Cosmic Cow was drawing the inoffensive udder...

Wow, that was pretty amazing, huh? Now all we need is the Bruins to shape up and we'll have a full set of champion-caliber teams!

Dunno... I was going to say it was kind of old by the time the NES was out, but that didn't stop like Donkey Kong and some of the Pac-Man games, right? I like what Wikipedia says about his backstory, mostly seen in Namco x Campcom: An old music instructor of mine told me he knew the guy who made the Dig Dug music and made a mint on the royalties. Looking back I don't know if he was just pulling my leg...

Bleh, I need to figure out how to get one of these in the Boston area. My preorder strategy is terrible. I preorder things I don't need to, decide to wait on the things I need to preorder...

As the haters are quick to point out, it's absolutely not ironic because the Wii started with the heart of the GC, cranked it up a notch, and then added all the goodies like the controllers and the online components. Processor wise the other systems have a MUCH harder time because their cores are far different than the predecessors. (Gotta give props to how PS2 basically used a PS1 for its video processing and then was able to get in the emulation "for free") Yeah, like that video where they dragged it behind a car and then it still kept on ticking. Except for the original frontloader NES (and maybe the grindy N64 controllers) Nintendo seems to do a great job with durable hardware. I haven't heard much pro or con about the Wii's robustness, but even then I have to admire how they're probably can't be a much smaller second revision of it, it's just so damn small already.

Yeah. Nintendo has a unique place in the industry. Having these characters around for so long, and having an organically built kind of multiverse thing... no other company can pull off a Smash Brothers type game like they can, not to mention the boost Mario 64 got just by drawing from all that rich 2D industry. Trying to think of who else can do stuff like that... Sega is probably second, come to think of it. And it's funny, for a younger generation, Sonic and that crew hold a place like Mario et al do for us older folks, with the cartoons and comics and all that. (Like, Mario vs Sonic seems like an oddball idea to me, but that's because Sonic feels like a johnny-come-lately) So it's not too surprising that some folks see the Sega/Nintendo parallel as stronger than it is.

Oh, geez, you know what? I think at some points in this thread I was mixing you (and your horror figure like avatar) w/ DracIsBack. My apologies for that. I don't think you need to declare utter lossage. If nothing else I'm grateful for this thread reminding me that the trend in video games isn't just a march to better and better, though I do think the general trend is positive. Downloadable stuff is pretty cool. I think the trouble might be a decade or so from now, if companies switch to all-downloads, the whole concept of used games goes out the window. (and is potentially fragile, like if they implement some kind of anti-piracy phone-home mechanism) I'm a little bit less pessimistic about the feasibility of downloadable content after watching HD on-Demand at a friends. It's crazy that coming over the wire was a better version of "Starship Troopers" than my buddy had in a box... (on the other hand, that's streaming. At least after you've made the trip to the store, you have the content in hand, and aren't sitting around waiting for it to load...)

A fair enough perspective. Oh, look at us being all reasonable and accepting of different opinions. Aha, I see. Well I'm a lot closer to your side in that debate than theirs. And if they're Sony fanboys, I imagine there's a bit of triumphalism there, given the success of the PS+PS2, that must be completely annoying for people who realize what a terrific system the DC was. For me it starts w/ the 4 controller ports, but continues with a system powerful enough to make good use of them. And it's a pity. After previous Googling today over lunch I looked at VGC's console review archive: http://www.videogamecritic.net/special.htm - which does a pretty fair handed overview of all the major consoles, and has a cool "innovations" section for each one. I was out of the loop videogame wise (92-96) while Sega was starting its big string of blunders... the no-additional-power CD, the too little too late 32X, the kind of rushed and not 3D enough Saturn, and finally the Dreamcast, which seemed to be poised to be the savior system but just got swamped. Sega's switch to software only is kind of interesting. After the seemingly meager (though supposedly consistently profitable!) successes of the N64 and GC, weren't some people predicting Nintendo would go the way of Sega, the software only play? Then again they said the same about Apple...

(I would also mention, not only is my "marketplace-based generations" view similar to my view on the morality of piracy, but also in terms of console innovations; N64 wasn't truly the first to have four controller ports or analog controls, but they were the first for a while, and responsible for repopularizing it among consoles, so I think that counts as innovation.) (heh in looking up a few things I found out this old AA thread where I argue along similar lines: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=98949 )

Closer to Xbox, obviously. No of course not and I know why: see below... That's fine, but I'm glad we kept this (probably sometimes frustrating) conversation going as long as we have, because I think I finally realized the crucial difference in perspective between us - why I don't agree with you though relatively few of your points are all that arguable. You analyze "generations" (which I'm thinking is a bit of an oversimplification anyway) in terms of: when systems were made, the possible intentions of the designers, what the hardware could possibly do, and release dates. I look at generations more in terms of how they were used (what games out) and more importantly, how systems are competing in the retail marketplace (which in my book then has a big influence on pop-cultural impact, which I find much more important than hardware details.) Like here's one reason why, despite loving the system, I don't want to grant the DC a full seat at the "last gen" table: PS2 knocked it out of the running so thoroughly that it doesn't feel like it was really competing. One hallmark of a generation is that it almost nearly overlaps the "nextgen" almost 'til nextgen becomes "current gen" -- I can go to a Best Buy right now and choose from a variety of PS2, Xbox, and even a few GC titles, but DC has been gone for... what, three or four years, at least. (Incidentally, this marketplace view is similar to how I view piracy, that it's less immoral to copy games that you just can't GET retail -- this view is complicated with the possibility of later emulated re-releases but still...) I'm sure there are faults to be found with my marketplace-based generation view, but it does have some benefits... if nothing else it explains why we don't see eye to eye on more issues, and getting back to where this branch started, why this generation with three strong competitors (PS3, 360, Wii) seems to have as much competition as the last with its three main competitors (PS2,Xbox,GC), and stronger than the two previous (PS,N64), (SNES, Genesis). While I admit it looks like I'm leaving other systems out of generations entirely, I'm not meaning too, I just think the also-rans aren't as useful as you might in judging the health or value of a particular generation. And NOW we can agree to disagree, though I'm not trying to claim the final word -- just managed to focus some vague feelings into thoughts here.

The PS2 and Dreamcast really didn't come all that far apart. One was out in 1999 and the other was out in 2000. They were followed in 2001 by the GC and XBox. In contrast, the N64 was out in 1996 and PS1 in 1995. In terms of what it could have done, with the same level of development, the same experience and commitment to pushing it? I think you might be surprised. Pop in F355 racing sometime through a VGA output and it tells you pretty quickly where the Dreamcast fits in. Eh, race games are kind of "easy"... judging by http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=57166459464109335 the environment is REALLY simple.... the car looks great, but the track is blah. Maybe it's not fair but I tend to judge systems by what they were used to do at the time, not by what the hardware can be pushed to do ... (I've seen what Thomas j has done on 2600 for instance and on both counts I don't think the DC really cuts it. When I see how much more motion Jet Set got on the Xbox (though that might be an artistic decision) and looking at footage of Shenmue vs what I saw in GTA3.... According to what statistics in what region? worldwide from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars

Hmm. This might widen the divide between "serious" and "casual" games... I see casual games as the spiritual successor of the games we honor here (i.e. retro). "serious" games may well me more and more multiplayer but I think casual gaming will hold its own.