hex65000

A little late to the party on this, but I have been watching this with a lot of interest... I think you did a good job trying to keep the poll as even handed as possible. We all have our biases and opinions, but your questions didn't feel skewed to me. I agree, and Sony is good at bullying folks. The makers of Bleem? --sued out of business. Lik-Sang? Ditto. The fact that 'GeoHot' at least left them stalemated to opt to settle makes me think that someone knew continuing to apply legal pressure wasn't going to end well. If that was a legal or public relations front, who knows. I didn't trust the quality control of the PS2 for a loooong time due to getting burned by it, and the only reason I own a PS3 is because Crazy Climber sold me his. I was considering keeping it offline, but the barrage of firmware updates was the clincher. It still forces updates if you buy a new enough game though. Just like the PSP. I have two 'code frozen' PSPs that are just waiting to be broken open. I look forward to that day. The 360 -- as unreliable as that unit is... <sigh> is my modern platform of choice. I think I'm pushing a good 70 titles for it now. The PS3... maybe 15 in my collection -- At least two or three exclusives on my want list, but I'm in no rush to support Sony at all. I'd like to think that Sony and their supporters will learn from all of this, but who am I kidding. This is just a bucket of failure. I agree that cheating is inappropriate, and that's where my agreement with you ends. I buy hardware and I should be allowed to do what I please with it. Period. That's not the 'entitlement' bull that I hear a lot of proponents claiming. I'm not renting the hardware from Sony, so as far as I'm concerned they can take a walk. If so, then I want the $300 bucks I shelled out for the machine and they can come and get it. When I spoof or abuse their network, then they have a right to ban me and/or my console. This isn't rocket science here. A drunken monkey with a nail gun can implement these solutions. Now, while I have your attention, do a little light reading on Wired... Wired: PS Network Hack Whodunnit Wired: Sony Says Credit cards Were Encrypted Wired: Security Whistleblower In PS Hacker Hunt The whodunnit article rings pretty true to me. Insane accusations by trolls along the lines of 'GeoHot' helping these people hack Sony just proves that some folks are just plain crazy. The man is clearly rather smart, and knows he's under the microscope. It's a no brainer really. While I don't know a ton about Anonymous, if their mission is to shame corps who abuse folks because they have money and we don't it doesn't jive well. The general cyber theft is the most logical. Especially since I think we are even seeing suspect charges pop up for members here. The last article linked also provides some insight, because this guy realized that their front end servers were out of date. If a white hat hacker can figure out that much, then it's pretty obvious that a black hat can capitalize on the situation -- and did. See above. I do not think that the two events are as related as Sony would like us to believe. Do I hope that the person or person(s) responsible for jacking all that data are caught? You betcha -- they deserve it. Sony is gonna be ok, and the Internet will conveniently forgive and forget everything once the next "Call of Duty" iteration comes out and they can shoot their friends in the face via PSN. Yay. I guess... Hex. [ Considered doing at least one '$ony' in the actual post body, but decided that it took credibility away from my argument, so this is the last of that bit you'll see from me. ]

For an introductory level Pokemon Game, I'd say the Leafgreen/Firered iterations for the GBAdvance. It is the original story from the Gameboy Era, but it's prettier to look at, and can be played on readily available hardware. The other reason I recommend those two is the lack of a timer associated with the game. The other Pokemon titles have events that occur during the day or at night or on certain days. Sometimes I can't play these games (like at work) and when I get home and usually during the weekend, the last thing I'm thinking to myself is: "How are my Pokemans?" Black/White have been good so far IMO, but I'm not that very far into the game. Hex. [ Had an interesting modern gaming realization today. I want to process that thought... it is a fascinating thought that never occurred to me before. ]

No, and it is an effective way for me to 'unfriend' you too. I had one RL person I see occasionally, and I popped her off my list because all she did was play a ton of Facebook games. My impression is that they are gaping privacy holes to the player and their friends. Hex. [ Actually popped a couple more friends because of a separate and unrelated thread involving Facebook. ]

You might try competing in some of the High Score Clubs on Atari Age. That'll give you a goal. I did it once for a game I liked and it was a blast. As for the never ending aspect of many Atari games, I would agree that it's a conditioning thing. A lot of games have an ending and you want to see it, or at least have the bragging rights of being able to say "I got to the end." I honestly can't think of a modern game that has a full on endless aspect to it. Sure there are a few 'endless mode' remixes, but I can't think of a proper "endless" modern game right now. So yeah, I'd suggest checking out the high score club forums and enjoy yourself. Hex. [ Suspects that a lot of coffee will be needed on this day... ]

Clearly I'm super slow at this game. Broke out Pokemon White over the weekend and have been playing it pretty regularly, and have logged at least 5 hours into it. I just got my first badge and am creeping into the next town. Caught a couple of new creatures, but it's obvious that I have a ways to go. The increased random encounters is pretty crazy in spots. As I was wandering around the Dreamfactory I literally would take one move action and have a battle on my hands. That and it was the same three attackers. <sigh> Still, so far the one thing I disliked about some of the later Pokemon games was the time-critical aspects to it. Where if I didn't play the game all hours of the day and night, there was stuff I missed out on. That was irritating, and why I liked the LeafGreen/FireRed releases because it didn't use a clock to determine stuff. Hex. [ Still ready for a much needed nap.... ]

I agree Underball, but it's going to happen. I do it too. Sometimes I keep it to myself, sometimes I'll just qualify my statements as such. In retrospect, I am very much a Nintendo Handheld fanboy. I said this somewhere else too. It's also been the last bastion of non-dlc gaming; something I am also not a big fan of. The comparison of consoles is never ending. It just is. When you have two different architectures that do roughly the same function, comparisons WILL be made. Perhaps it is our desire to quantify and sort everything that we have some reasonable grasp of. The comparison of specs implies the potential capabilities of a system, whether they are fully realized in the near term is harder to determine and is prone to speculation. The Atari 6502 based machines illustrate that pretty regularly in terms of how modern day programmers are doing such impressive work with so little. A lot of the early PS/2 software is pretty crummy compared to when the platform matured. See, I could not even avoid comparing a platform to itself over time there. It's ingrained in us. Fanboyism occurs in my mind when the commentary is: - Founded on something that is more marketing hype than anything else. We all get sucked into it on occasion. - The comparison is made based on some arcane hunk of trivia that no normal user would ever dream of doing. This falls into the "That's nice and all, but it's irrelevant." - Has no grip on reality whatsoever. - Is based on the loyalty to a company that in actuality doesn't care if the fanboy lived or died today, yesterday, or tomorrow. During a design an architecture has to be laid out. Perhaps the big picture for each console is pretty similar, but as you dig into the details, the designers in the trenches have to make choices. Sometimes difficult choices that involve a trade of some sort. What it to run cooler? Cut the CPU speed. Want it cheaper? Less memory then? Need better graphics? Well, hell. Something has to give. These trades and architecture decisions result in radically different designs. If there was one true right answer on a design there would be one video game company out there selling us hardware not three. I can attempt to explain why I claim to be a Nintendo handheld fan based on some of this... Lets see how far I get before I violate my own criteria. I like the Nintendo handhelds because I get a fairly rugged --in my experience-- piece of hardware that typically will have backwards compatibility with the previous iteration of handhelds. This gives me the added bonus of an instant library to play even if I am an early adopter. While the visuals are not cutting edge, it does possess decent battery life and there are first and third party titles available that interest me. While not technically superior to the PSP, I find it the preferred platform for handheld gaming. Lastly, In before the locking thing... Hex. [ Yeah, that place... I go there occasionally... ]

I snagged Black/White when Amazon had their sale on Saturday. I look forward to some more cutesified pit-fighting... Ehhhmm.... I really liked the Leafgreen/Firered re releases. It brought those old Gameboy versions back to life in a good way. Hex. [ Depressing, but kinda true. ]

Picked up the Nintendo DS wireless dongle adapter... Arrived as expected. Thanks man! Hex. [ Strives to master the art of battlefield improvisation... by battlefield I mean, life. ]

Bought a couple of boxed atari 2600 games off of me, everything went just fine. Thanks again man. Hex. [ Oh hey! It's the middle of the day! ]

Picked up a PC ISA card from me, everything went well. Thanks again man! Hex. [ Today is pick up the pieces of my eff-ed up life day! ]

Bump + Update: - Pointmaster Sticks are gone! - Moon Patrol and Crossbow are gone! Any questions, well... you know the drill. Hex. [ Needs to photograph some stuff... ]

I admit that the 3DS was looking mighty tempting sight unseen. I've concluded that I am a pretty hefty Nintendo fanboy when it comes to their handheld gear. At least my buying habits and collection support that argument. I own 5 DS systems and a sixth I periodically forget about has been on indefinite loan to a friend of mine. That sentence scares me quite a bit. Especially when I am the only gamer in the house. Before I panic -- and part of me is ready to, because if the game makers are going to brick hardware at their discretion I want out of the modern scene. Now. The stance that they may be saying this to cover their rear is more plausible, but I still remain leery of what the industry's intent with gamers really is. So my troll statement is, "Good luck Early Adopters! May the Beta test be a success!" While mean, it's kind of true. The early adopters are the proverbial canary in the mineshaft. One of these users will do something Nintendo doesn't like and the company's intentions will be made clear. If there are confirmed brickings of systems, it'll be all over the place in a short period. The other route is to simply take your system offline and if a firmware hack becomes available it will have to be able to handle fooling forced updates on a regular basis. Of course, the next extreme would be something like Steam (which is already seriously intrusive IMO) having the capability of borking your PC because it sees something it doesn't like. While it's pretty unthinkable, the parallel is there. So I feel like a broken record stating my opinion of game publishers in general: "The hate us as users, but they love our money." Hex. [ Feels that I'm going to see my threshold for pain in terms of DRM looming pretty quickly... ]

Whaoh! Thread Necro. Still, Since I didn't vote until just a little bit ago... I buy most of my modern games new unless it's horribly expensive or I blunder across it cheap enough. Of course, with the current generation of consoles, they keep stripping stuff out before you even buy the game. But since the PS2, GCube, and XBox1 are on the out I've picked up some proper bargains here and there. Especially since I do a lot of online shopping, there are fewer question marks with a new purchase. I like that aspect when I click "add to cart". Hex. [ Knows he is alive because the pain is aMAzinG! ]

So I've been dorking with Youtube again. After I FINALLY posted the opening up of Golden Ax's Box-O-Crap, the bug hit me again. I wanted to talk about some stuff that I thought may be interesting to others. However, I'm super low-tech when it comes to video editing which made me think I should do a test run to see what shakes out and help with the learning process. My YouTube Channel... So let's talk about lessons learned. The first being that if I am going to review a game, I need to just simply voice over it and merge me talking with gameplay footage. It was clear the entire time I'm demonstrating the game I am distracted. That 12 minutes of me playing a single level was done in one take, and it's not a good take. While I think enough is happening to convey how the game plays plus me talking, it's a rather long segment, and I wrestled with the idea of chopping that up more. Especially when I realized the video would span into two parts. The other more annoying thing was the summary at the end, I just wasn't coherent. Even after writing out notes on what I wanted to cover and the 3 takes I threw out. <grump> I did want to avoid giving a "score" of any kind. I am more interested in conveying the current price range of the game, if I thought it was worth that price, and if it is worth playing at all. I figure if you don't like what you see in terms of the extensive gameplay footage it doesn't matter how cheap or costly it is. It does at least present an idea of what you should expect to pay. The next game I'm targeting is pretty complex. So the question is, am I on the right track or do I need to rethink this? The video footage is a technical issue that is going to rear its head again, since I'm going to be pointing my camera at a LCD monitor and hoping for the best. The DSi XL did an okay job of showing stuff, but it wasn't the best video footage that's for sure. Thoughts? Hex. [ Has considered some other things in his world to go on about for a few minutes... we shall see. ]

May be able to help you there. Give me a shout after the weekend. I think I have both games still sealed. Never gonna get to them I suspect... Hex. [ Got a box from Amazon today and said (aloud) "What the hell did I order?" ]

DinG! Yep. That's pretty much it. Quite possibly the handiest thing I've used since the upgrade. And the fact that the chat works again is pretty boss too. Hex. [ Caught this message using the 'spy'... ]

I was tempted to anticipate grabbing Bulletstorm for the PC, but the DRM looks pretty craptastic... I did pick up DeBlob 2 for 360 though. May also keep my eyes open for Dead Space as well. We shall see. Hex. [ 2 hours and counting for his disk diagnostic... ]

Still waiting here. I'm guessing it'll show up on Saturday. I am 'far away' from CPU last time I checked. Edit: I'm guessing Jetset is referring to the person who listed it, and not you. Hex. [ I will not panic... I will not panic... I will quietly panic and not say anything to alarm others... ]