stop making this suck ass war games, THEY SUCK. All you cheeto eating war hero wanna bes need to go out and shoot yourself with an m1 instead of pretending to be GI Joe behind your NERD MONITORS.

I think someone's angry that they suck at BF1942...

"... thanks in part to the success of the ADV Films amine movie based on the game."

Anime, guys. Anime. As in, animated. A lot of it is quite good; get away from your PCs and check it out.

Well that settles it. Call your congressman today and tell him you demand Doom 3 vouchers!

Don't joke about such things. This Congress enjoys giving away entitlement benefits. They may just decide that a free copy of Doom3 for everyone is a good idea.

I find driving in Halo to be a bit floaty - especially the buggy. The reactions for UT vehicles are bit more crisp and immediate, IMO.

Agreed--except for the Raptor. I love that thing, but its movement is too gradual. Frankly, for the difficulty it has in aiming at and damaging targets (those laser balls are weak...), the thing should at least be more responsive, especially when turning.

On a side note, does anyone know of a command to display an in-game frame rate? This is driving me nuts.

While we're talking about benchmarks, does anyone know of a way to display a frames per second number in the Windows demo? There's no selectable option that I can tell, and a Google search on the topic has given me precisely squat.

My question is - it includes winning entries from the MSU contest? As in the one for 2K*3*? The same 2K3 that isn't compatible w/ 2K4? So that content's pretty useless to you if you don't have 2K3. No big deal, just seems odd to include add-ons for a different game than the one you're buying, even if they ARE closely related. (??)

2K4 is compatible with 2K3 content, but not vice-versa.

Is this the demo that makes Linux fun?

I can summarize this thread nice and neatly: Woe unto they who annoy the fanboy legions.

Also, I believe this was one of the first games to feature Jeremy Soule's epic musical score, using a full-blown orchestra - I think they used the Seattle Orchestra.

One of the first is right; I think Soule's very first game--at least, the earliest work of his that I know if--is the SNES game Secret of Evermore, which wasn't as notable. Good, but not the same as that stirring action music that played when I would send forty K-Bots over to a small enemy base.

Heck Half-Life never required a cd for multiplayer - and look at it played online by more people than any other game in history.

If you're implying that Half-life's multiplayer success was due to its lack of requiring a CD in the drive over its massive single-player base and the resulting mods (Counter-strike and Day of Defeat in particular), you're crazy.

If you aren't, then you need to proofread your posts for clarity starting right now.

Though, credit earned is credit due, and I will say that Cavedog at least produced a better RTS than Blizzard ever did. Starcraft, whatever wonderful game it may be, is a shadow to the originality TA brought.

TA also forced a year-long delay in Starcraft's development. The year didn't help.

YES! It's about time Total Annihilation got some love.

Man, I think I'm going to go load it up and play the single-player campaign...

That actually raises a good point. Obviously a standard TV isn't going to be able to show a resolution of 1024x768, but is that plain television then capable of actually showing an anti-aliased picture? Or would it's lack of resolution hamper it in that aspect?

Well, the image wouldn't actually be transmitted to the TV until after being blown-up and then reduced. I don't know of a monitor that can handle the high-resolution sizes of FSAA rendering, yet the technology is still usable on PCs. I don't think there would be a real problem.

IMO, the next-gen of consoles should output at 640x480 minimum with 4xFSAA.

You are aware that they are, in essence, the same thing right? Just a different way of doing it. There is no difference graphically between 800x600 with 2xFSAA and 1600x1200 without FSAA. At least, if my ancient definition of AA is still how they do it. (Ie, 800x600 with 4xFSAA means the image is drawn at 4x800x600, or 3200x2400, then compressed back into your 800x600 screen. This compression is what removes all the jaggies)

Quite aware. However, FSAA is a much more console-friendly fix for jagged lines than raising the default output resolution to a size that most TVs don't like very much. Maybe when the majority of TVs around the world become HDTV-compliant we can see 1600x1200 console games.

Until then, console devs know how to deal with the limitations of their chosen format; they've been dealing with them for 20+ years, after all.

Take into account that this game was released on the Nintendo 64 (same system gave us Super Mario Kart and Donkey Kong Country)

Super Mario Kart and Donkey Kong Country were for the SNES. You're thinking of Mario Kart 64 and DK64.

Art is not driving console game development, money is. And it shows in the kinds of titles that they have.

PC games are revolutionary, while console games are often just re-hashed titles. Games like DOOM3, HL2, Black and White and The Sims are setting standards for the types of games that are going to be released in the future.

Your Clymer is showing.

FSAA doesn't depend on higher resolution, FSAA depends on the number of passes it makes; that's why there's 2x, 4x, and 8X FSAA. The only visual problem I had with FFX was its lack of anti-aliasing, especially given the amount of closeups its plot scenes feature.

I can notice the difference between 640x480 and 1024x768 after switching between them, but if a game is designed specifically for one resolution, then the ability to change it doesn't matter much when it's pulled off well--and more often than not, it's done so.

Halo screams "generic FPS," agreed. But Halo is one game in a sea of thousands. PCRPGs are getting to the point where the only difference between them artwise is the size of the breasts on the female models. FPSes are getting better, but while the variety between games is getting better, the variety in each game is still lagging; Half-life, for example, hallway to ventilation duct to storage room to similar ventilation duct to similar hallway to elevator shaft to similar ventilation duct to similar hallway to similar storage room... ad infineum. The second half of the game, around the time you get to the canyon, is a lot better, but the problem is getting by the incredibly boring first part. And Xen... yeah, everything looked the same there.

Basic control schemes in FPS are simple, yeah; WASD, look around with the mouse, easy stuff. But then the developers get ambitious. They give you four types of grenades bound to four different keys. You get a flashlight, multiple types of communication channels, multiple vehicle commands (best example I can think of is looking around in a car in GTA3)... it stacks up and results in one big clusterfuck.

Every damn console game looks the same, eh? I don't know about you, but I don't get confused between King of Fighters and Dragon Quest VIII.

Oh yeah... I don't want online communities like Counter-strike's. I don't need to join a game only to find out that eight of the ten people on the server are cheating, one is a 12 year old admin who kicks anyone who kills him, and the tenth person is the unlucky soul who happened to walk into this clusterfuck of an online game.

Now please calm the hell down. I'm not flaming anyone here, and I'm not bashing the PC.

This comment was edited on Feb 5, 14:59.

I wouldn't call it a war, but it's sure better than the typical "HL2 source code theft was staged d00d!" stuff floating around here.

Looks like the primary reason cited for PCs now is the technical capability.

Sorry guys, but I just don't think low resolution is that big a deal on consoles. The games are designed specifically with these restrictions in mind, and I don't see any problems with it. If the standard resolution gets bumped up to 1024x768 on the next generation consoles, I won't complain, but consoles need FSAA more than a higher resolution.

Also, the games... I agree, Doom3 and HL2 are better on PCs: the FPS was created on the PC, and as such it's a better platform for those games. I also think Grand Theft Auto does better as a PC game than a console game. Still,l I see a far wider variety of games on the consoles than I do on the PC. Just because I cited RPGs doesn't mean those are the only games available. I don't want to continue the argument by naming games, but I do agree that games like Doom3 and AoK would be terrible on consoles--without mouse/keyboard peripherals. IIRC, two of the next three consoles--the Xbox2 and the GameCube2--are being developed with ATi's video chips, really negating most things that could be said about them.

Alright guys, let's just agree that good games == fun, regardless of platform.

1)Controller...mouse+key combo
2)Output...unfortunately i don't have an HDTV. Therefore the res is too low for me (on my TV)
3)Tweaking...half the fun is setting the graphics and such.
4)Laziness...After i surf and read mail and other stuff i don't havta move to another area
5)Economics...since i spend all my money on upgrading or software.
6)Usually the games that i play aren't available for consoles until way later.
7) Mods,Maps,patches etc...
8) Not sure about this one but dontcha havta keep switching cd's to play other games? With PC i dont havta.
9) Maybe a few other reasons i fail to mention...

It'd take too long to go over this one by one... I'll say that PC developers spread out too many functions over too many keys on the keyboard, while console games usually get the same amount of complexity with much, much fewer commands available.

Console resolution doesn't really matter because the developers compensate by designing specifically to that resolution. Tweaking falls into this category also; if half the fun of a game is tweaking, you really have to ask yourself about the games you're playing. While I agree that 320x200 should die, the games look good regardless; when I play FFX and Xenosaga, I don't think "If only it was in 1280x1024," I think, "If only they had some FSAA." That's all these games need to look perfect. The art direction is better than the direction I see in PC games.

Consoles have had internet access since the SNES' Xband modem. The Dreamcast could browse the web, play MMORPGs (Phantasy Star Online), join IRC, and check email. Xbox Live allows you to download new maps and content (see Splinter Cell). If consoles don't have the games you want, that's fine, but which games DO you want?

Economics... consoles are $180 max right now. That's 2/3 the cost of a video card. I don't understand your logic.

Square was infamous for making multi-disc games on the PSone; Final Fantasy VIII was probably the worst, with four discs total. PS2 uses DVDs, so there's only one disc. And really... swapping is not that big a deal. You get up every 15 hours and change the CD. Oh well. You have to change CDs every time you want to play a different PC game, right?

Maybe it's because I grew up with consoles, and later got into PC gaming, so I've got a different perspective on this than most other Blues posters, but... I don't see why consoles are perceived as a lesser gaming value than PCs. When I think classic gaming, I think of Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Doom, Duke 3D, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear, Sonic, Street Fighter 2, Final Fantasy... the list goes on.

And that's it for Extra Long Post Of The Day.

This comment was edited on Feb 5, 01:14.