Atarinvader

What no Soul Calibur, Justice League, Virtua Fighter, Fighters Megamix, Waku Waku 7, Darkstalkers...? I could go on probably... ...Capcom, SNK and Marvel Vs. series, Shaq Fu, Super Smash Bros., Rival Schools, Fighting Vipers, Bloody Roar, UFC, DBZ: Budokai...

*bump* Here's a plug for my AA blog :-) Atarinvader's Videogaming Blog

The one thing that I always remember about school was the good teachers, they can have the most inspiring affect on your life.

Picked this up today along with my Episode III tickets. Really enjoyed the Tuskcan Raiders at the pod races!

I'm currently building mine, you can see pictures and read about it on my AtariAge blog (link in my signature).

If you look at the standard NES design you can see an area of dark (yet slightly transparent) plastic similar to that used in front of the IR receivers on the likes of video players of the time. I always wondered what that was for, obviously the legacy of a design long forgotten.

I don't feel that it was created with the love and honesty systems like the Neo Geo or Dreamcast were. They were created for people to enjoy, to allow them to play and interact. The Xbox feels as if it was created to produce money, without the fact being hidden. Perhaps it's also its utilitarian PC roots - usefulness over any sense of flare.

It could just be a trick played by the scan lines but the bottom darker gray section looks ridged. Also, isn't the LED in the wrong place? I'd also say that this was probably a prototype console. As far as I remember reading, and I don't claim to know much on Ninty subjects, there were several different versions of the NES dragged around trade shows and to the executive board rooms of major toy manufacturers (including Atari) that very from slightly to very different to the finished model.

I played Conflict: Vietnam, as I was sent a promo by the publishers, and the only thing missing from it was the word 'Gook'. It had a very pro-American undertone to it, and was intended to draw joy from the ability to shoot at Vietcong and civilians. It really upset me. And the controls were bad. On another note - love the Xbox but I feel it really needs a few more innovative titles to give it a kick up the arse, perhaps some more Capcom support. It's also the only current generation not to have been blessed (or hindered) by a Treasure release.

It's definitely missing some of the flavor of other consoles like the PS2 or Gamecube because of it's lack of Japanese support. Where Microsoft are pouring money in to Western companies to make games that will appeal to the Eastern market. You won't find any Bishi Bashis, Rez or Fantavisions on the console, but you will find a lot of solid, albeit rather soulless, FPS and racing iterations. Definitely holes in the JRPG and Quirky sections of the machines library.

EA bought Maxis in 1997, The Sims was released in March 2000 and was therefor directed under EAs watchful eye. The initial Burnout release was indeed Take 2, published by Acclaim, in 2001, but the series didn't gain the acclaim (no pun intended) until the most recent game, EA published. But I'm sure they can't take all the glory of it, they only adapted the game by rewriting it in to a new engine and dumping heaps more features. They've been innovators in the sports field (again, no pun) since the first Madden game. They were also amongst the first to license. But I still don't understand the philosophy that a 40 hour crap game is better than a 3 hour outstanding game.

I agree with you Saturn. So many games nowadays have far too much filler for the sake of longevity, it eats up production cost and forces the industry to have such a high price point at retail. Games like Resident Evil, most Japanese RPGs and the like have you running boring key finding missions or fighting out pointless random battles, keeping you from going to one place or another too fast. The industry really is running in to trouble by watering down games. It seems as if they create a shite load of lovingly rendered FMVs and then stick something in to flesh it out (the game), not good. As for all the EA bashing that is being knocked about - are we forgetting that EA actually create quality and innovative games? In fact, the most innovative game of all times, The Sims, was created by EAs sister Maxis. They've reinvented the racing genre in the Burnout series, worked on some of the best movie licenses (Harry Potter et al), and that's not to mention what they've done for the sports genre of the games industry. Don't bash EA if you think that games should offer longer for less and that the industry should 'simply thin out those who cant fund large dev teams and large scale projects.' Because that is what is happen - games are becoming more expensive to produce so companies will conglomerate until we have about 4 or 5 big companies and a few smaller companies under there ownership. Like the 'Big Five' in Hollywood: what is happening now is comparable to Hollywood in the 50s.

I occasionally put in more than that in a day, but I more often spend less time watching a DVD. I'd like to see more serial games that cost as much, and take as long to complete, as a DVD movie. Of course this wouldn't apply to all games, obviously Halo 2's multiplayer elements wouldn't lend well to this model. Shorter games, with better content, would lend to much more replay value, in my eyes at least. Also new generation console's power won't be wasted on shorter games. The flashier the better - slicker graphics and better gameplay opportunities. Halo 2, for example, pulled some great tricks - like the vehicle based missions - but very soon got repetitive. Perhaps at the sake of 'longevity'. The Prince of Persia games would be great for this, cut them in to four games and charge less. In between each release you have the possibility to tweak the engine, get feedback and add new features. Build the engine. Create the content. Release. Improve the engine. Create new content. Release... etc Of course this would increase marketing budgets, but would allow you to build a following for an IP whilst the content is still fresh in the minds of consumers. This is very common amongst Japanese RPG developers and worked well with the Street Fighter series and almost all of SNK's games. There is definitely problems with many movie-licensed games, but that isn't due to Hollywood money funding them. In fact, publishers are paying Hollywood for the use of their IP to create games. But it works the other way around too - many Hollywood movies based on videogame (comic, book, music, TV etc) licenses are crap, it's a fact that company's jump on the bandwagon and cash-in. I also reckon that product placements are great, we need new money revenues in the industry and the movie industry has had it for years. Tapper, anyone? BTW jeepnut I'm not trying to jump on you and your argument in particular

I really think that the industry needs a shake up right now. What I'd like to see is games becoming shorter and cheaper, with more independent funding in the production of the games. And I think that we will probably see that happen more as the content delivery changes, which is something I was excited about - in concept at least - with the Phantom. For example: I really enjoyed Halo 2, but by god it was too long to sit down and go through. I would have been much happier to see the game in four section, paying £10 each, rather than £30 for a game that takes a couple of weeks to crack. I think many people see games as too long and expensive, and this something needing to be addressed. I can really see things moving toward the Hollywood model for funding and development, and the retail and publishing sectors moving towards music models (both traditional and electronic delivery). Dev studios soliciting funding with a games proposal, creating games with this funding, then either indie publishing digitally or finding a more traditional publishing route. Games which really do take 2-3 hours to complete (so can be finished in one siting), but at the price point of a movie DVD. The future?

I use a Hori '2way' for fighters and shooters, it's basically like the Hori Gamecube SNES pad. It doesn't have analouge unfortunately, unlike the Madcatz NES stlye 'Retrocon' (as pictured below). The other option would be to use an Xbox or Cube pad via SmartJoy

Don't know how this passed me by! I'd heard rumors, but shit! Looks like there are probably betas floating about already... It'd be interesting to see if this is the conclusion to the series, or merely just a spin off? More at http://www.shenmue-online.com/

Wouldn't it be nice if Sega dished out Broadband adaptors and let all DC users play PSO for free... I really would love to carry on playing my DC online. The BBA was actually used by some of the dev community to load code in to the machine in the early days. They created a boot that would request unsigned code via FTP, AFAIR.

You may want to look at the Lord of The Rings games by EA

I never have and probably won't, due to the fact that the first wave of machines are generally unreliable and expensive (like the PS2 and Xbox respectively). If, however, Sega do - as I suspect they will - release a new console then I'll being whacking my money down at Lik-Sang for the very first one in to the country!