BloodyPuppy
Look, Ma! Two Heads!
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I prefer Battlefield to CoD myself (haven't played Bad Company though), but that's just me. Also, the controls in GoW are awful.
Ratty said:When I say "failure", I mean from the consumer's perspective, not Microsoft's. I have no doubt that the company is making a killing, but that doesn't change the fact that $400 is still too much for what is essentially a poorly-crafted, second-rate PC. Compare that, for example, to the Wii, which offers more for a far lesser cost, even if it has less raw processing power.
Nintendo has Mario, Zelda and JRPGs, Sega had Sonic, PlayStation has JRPGs and beat 'em ups... What does Xbox have, other than an overrated first person shooter series that can barely hold a candle to its five-years-old PC counterparts?
Mediocre isn't the right word, but it's okay. The issue is that it gets far too much undeserved hype and is often billed as the best FPS ever. It's an alright game, but nothing special. Besides, they implemented regenerative health in 2 and 3, and I hate regenerative health. Overall it's just an okay and highly overrated series that sort of represents the plentiful other overhyped and generic series that populate the market.
You are forgetting the part where Wii and PS3 can actually be expected to *work* when you plug them in, rather than die horribly after a couple of weeks. Hell, 360's design and craftsmanship are so demonstrably shoddy that the machine should never have even left the drawing boards, let alone go into production and *remain there* for years. Better gaming systems tanked because they didn't meet the quality standards of their era, and it boggles the mind how 360 managed to escape their fate.maximaz said:From consumer's perspective, it's actually pretty good compared to the other two, especially now that it's the cheapest console. It wasn't the most expensive one at launch and the price quickly dropped until it became the least expensive. PS3 gets more complaints regarding price since they haven't lowered it. They just discontinued consoles and removed features (backwards compatibility removed completely), they haven't really lowered the price, neither has Nintendo.
All consoles are second rate, stripped down PC's, even the Wii.
I hardly think it's valid to compare an obscure PC peripheral to Wiimote, which is not only the primary input unit of the Wii console, but games actually take advantage of its functionality to varying degrees. It's fair to say that Nintendo managed to redefine the way players interact with their games, an evolutionary step that hasn't been achieved in decades and represent a massive achievement. Not to mention that the device is of good quality and quite affordable given its capabilities. Hell, some groups I've worked with, who conduct research in the area of virtual reality and embodied conversational agents, purchase a fuckton of Wiis only to strip them down for their Wiimote sensors, which they later reuse in their various projects involving human-computer interaction. You don't often see a gaming peripheral that revolutionizes not only gaming, but also scientific research!There was a Wii remote type controller for the PC long before Wii came out, which is why I think Nintendo marketing people are geniouses for what they've done. So, I continue to disagree on this one.
You're missing the point. Xbox may have JRPGs, beat 'em ups and platformers, but none of these can be characterized as defining the console and the surrounding gaming culture. Most of these titles are also available on other platforms (and often look and play better), and for every exclusive you can always find superior alternatives on a competing system. Not a single seminal franchise originates from the Xbox. Not one genre-defining game, nor a new and imaginative gameplay style that could be qualified as emblematic of the platform. Again, it's just an underpowered, stripped-down PC, as irrelevant to the artistic and cultural evolution of gaming as the Toshiba notebook sitting on my desk.360 actually has a crap load of JRPGs. I'm not even sure the PS3 has more JRPGs than 360. It also has quite a few platformers, including Sonic. Viva Pinata and Fable are pretty much Xbox mascots and they're pretty unique. Microsoft also aggressively went after playstation exclusives turning them multiplatform or even 360 exclusive. There are definitely a lot of shooters on 360 but how can anyone say that its library is crap compared to other consoles is beyond me.
I will not dispute that Wii game library contains piles upon piles of low-quality shovelware. But then again, so did Atari 2600, and yet if you were to list all the video game classics of the late '70s and early '80s, I'm guessing your list would be 90% Atari and 10% everyone else. It's still far too early to tell if Wii will be even half as important and influential for gaming as the 2600 was all those years ago, but there is little doubt that it will leave its mark.In my honest opinion, Nintendo Wii has the worst library ever. Yes, they have a Mario and Zelda and whatnot but they are not making games anymore. They have more of that Wii Dogs, Wii Cook, Wii fit crap than actual games. There are only two games that I'd actually want to play on the Wii: Metroid Prime 3 and Mario, that's all (!). I played the latest Zelda game on Gamecube (identical to Wii version, except for the controls) and it's almost a remake of Ocarina of Time.
Ratty said:You are forgetting the part where Wii and PS3 can actually be expected to *work* when you plug them in, rather than die horribly after a couple of weeks. Hell, 360's design and craftsmanship are so demonstrably shoddy that the machine should never have even left the drawing boards.
I hardly think it's valid to compare an obscure PC peripheral to Wiimote... scientific research!
You're missing the point. Xbox may have JRPGs, beat 'em ups and platformers, but none of these can be characterized as defining the console and the surrounding gaming culture. Most of these titles are also available on other platforms (and often look and play better), and for every exclusive you can always find superior alternatives on a competing system. Not a single seminal franchise originates from the Xbox.
I will not dispute that Wii game library contains piles upon piles of low-quality shovelware. But then again, so did Atari 2600, and yet if you were to list all the video game classics of the late '70s and early '80s, I'm guessing your list would be 90% Atari and 10% everyone else...
BloodyPuppy said:I prefer Battlefield to CoD myself (haven't played Bad Company though), but that's just me. Also, the controls in GoW are awful.
maximaz said:I agree that it's very overhyped. It doesn't make it a mediocre game though. It's not like Stalker or HL but its not trying to be. They're different games.
Out of the 11.6 million units that shipped by early 2007, over 1.2 million had by that time already been returned due to defects. In other words, over 10% failure rate in the first year of retail sales! And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The defect rate of the initial production line was 68%. Sixty-eight percent! And that doesn't even mention how IBM initially had barely 16% yield for the Xenon CPU (In other words, of every 100 chips manufactured, only 16 could be expected to work!), or how Xenos was rushed out the gates even though ATI had half the engineers necessary to pull of a GPU that complex, or how Microsoft suffered from chronic shortage of qualified engineers, a malady further exacerbated by the fact that the best engineers were pulled off the 360 project in order to work on Zune... You don't have to take my word for it, it's all in this article. At least one of Microsoft's top engineers openly petitioned his superiors to shut down the production line in 2005, but Microsoft went ahead anyway. The end result are failure rates that may already be well into the thirties, as well as staggering financial losses for the company. Loss of reputation need not even be mentioned, and it may well permanently compromise the company's future in the video game business.maximaz said:Oh come on now. While there are definitely problems with some 360s, it's not like you can't expect them to work. Let's not be silly. I'm sure other consoles break too, although probably not as often. I personally have only had good experience with a 360 and I've had a drink spilled on it and go straight through it and it still works. If you do have problems with yours, you still get a working console for your money because of policies they have to make up for the trouble. Yes, it shouldn't happen and it's a fault but the bottom line is that consumers pay the least money for a console and they don't have to worry about it for 3 years because of the warranty. I'd say that they get a deal.
Did I say it was state of the art technology? No, of course not. Motion sensing for 3D applications has been around since the beginnings of virtual reality in the '80s and early '90s. What Nintendo managed to do was deliver the technology to the market in a very polished form and at an affordable price. Those research groups I mentioned have enough funding to purchase motion sensing equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet they chose to go with the Wii. That's saying something. What's saying even more is that there is a whole slew of games out for the Wii that use this input technology in new and creative ways. Yes, the technology has been around for years, but Nintendo were the first who used it to profoundly change the way we play video games.The fact is that that technology is not new. Nintendo saw its potential and focused on improving it and had their genious marketing department pimp it. I admire them for what they've done but it's hardly state of the art technology. Nintendo was the cheapest console at launch and the only one that actually made money from day one. That should tell you something about Wii. The ones who actually spent effort and money on developing new technology and can brag about it are Sony, they just have horrible marketers who thought that PS3 doesn't need any effort after the success of PS2.
As far as I'm aware, the franchises that defined the previous two PlayStation consoles (Square Enix JRPGs, Soul Calibur, MGS, Resident Evil) are still going strong on the PS3. Whether the PS3 will spawn anything new and original remains to be seen. But the thing is, it doesn't need to, since it already has a strong legacy of the PSX and PS2 going for it, even if some of their seminal series went multi-platform due to lure of Microsoft's dollars.What game can be characterized as defining PS3 or the original xbox? PS2 probably had some but PS3? Littlebigplanet is not more for PS3 than Viva Pinata is for 360.
The fact that most of 360's games are also on PS3 means that most of PS3 titles are also on 360, so I don't see logic there.
Most of the multiplatform games are actually known to be better on 360 too. I haven't personally compared any but if you go by what most sites say then that is the case.
So far, as gaming consoles, the 360 and PS3 have been achieving the same thing (even though PS3 might be capable of more), 360 just has more shooters, is cheaper, and doesn't have bluray.
I wouldn't know, I generally don't play console games and I only played a few noteworthy titles on the Wii. But it's difficult to believe that of all these massively popular party games, puzzle games, platformers, action-adventure games and whatnot, at least some won't be remembered as classics of our age. Like Einstein said in Red Alert, only time will tell.Yes, except that there are hardly any "classics" on the Wii. There are barely any games worth playing.
I sort of agree with your second paragraph, Wii does have games my grandma or little sister might want to play. That doesn't make it attractive to me personally. Apart from the fun of waving a remote instead of pressing buttons, the wii games are extremely primitive, if you can call them games. I'm not saying that there aren't some good ones but I can only think of two out of the whole Wii library.
That's part of my point, yes. My point is also that since the 360 doesn't have any particular defining traits (other that its notorious unreliability, that is) or comparative strengths, pretty much anyone contemplating a purchase of the 360 would have their gaming needs serviced better on one of the competing platforms. Really, when PC has better shooters and RPGs (I won't even mention strategy games and MMOs), PS2 and PS3 have better beat 'em ups and JRPGs, Nintendo has better casual games and platformers, what possible incentive could anyone have to invest in a 360?I think your problem with 360 is that it doesn't introduce anything new to the world of video games. I agree, it doesn't. If that's the point you're trying to make then I'm with you.
However, it doesn't qualify the 360 as a waste of money because it still gives you lots of enjoyment for an affordable price. It's not more of a waste than the original Xbox was or the PS3 is.
While the superiority of the PC as a gaming platform is unquestionable, it's still possible for creative evolution of gaming to occur on consoles. Nintendo were the first to realize that while their machines can't possibly hope to match the PC in terms of raw processing power, profound changes to the gaming experience can still be effected by other means - in their case, it's the introduction of new and unorthodox peripherals.The truth is that consoles will never be as good as PC's and video games got to a point, sometime in the late 90's, where they simply weren't going to grow more complex and deep on consoles. That task has long been given up to PC's. Unfortunately developers can't think of ways to make it as profitable as releasing eye candy on consoles. So consoles that don't introduce new neat controllers are not to blame. They do their job of providing fun games that are great on the big screen across from the couch and there is plenty of that to be found on 360.
Ausdoerrt said:True, however they are in the exact same genre thus can and should be held to the same standards. The hype only raises the expectiations, but does not interfere with the analysis. Without the hype, it is very easy to effectively argue how Quake or HL or Battlefield are better FPS games; with the hype calling it "the best shooter evah!" (without particular grounds for that) one simple becomes more pissed off and determined to point out the obvious.
Ratty said:Out of the 11.6 million units that shipped by early 2007, over 1.2 million had by that time already been returned due to defects. In other words, over 10% failure rate in the first year of retail sales!
Which means that the money you pay for a 360 is not going to waste.If you do have problems with yours, you still get a working console for your money because of policies they have to make up for the trouble. Yes, it shouldn't happen and it's a fault but the bottom line is that consumers pay the least money for a console and they don't have to worry about it for 3 years because of the warranty. I'd say that they get a deal.
What Nintendo managed to do was deliver the technology to the market in a very polished form and at an affordable price.
As far as I'm aware, the franchises that defined the previous two PlayStation consoles (Square Enix JRPGs, Soul Calibur, MGS, Resident Evil) are still going strong on the PS3. Whether the PS3 will spawn anything new and original remains to be seen. But the thing is, it doesn't need to, since it already has a strong legacy of the PSX and PS2 going for it, even if some of their seminal series went multi-platform due to lure of Microsoft's dollars.
what possible incentive could anyone have to invest in a 360?
maximaz said:Ausdoerrt said:True, however they are in the exact same genre thus can and should be held to the same standards. The hype only raises the expectiations, but does not interfere with the analysis. Without the hype, it is very easy to effectively argue how Quake or HL or Battlefield are better FPS games; with the hype calling it "the best shooter evah!" (without particular grounds for that) one simple becomes more pissed off and determined to point out the obvious.
I disagree completely on the games of the same genre thing, they can be very very different. For example, GTA and Jak and Daxter 2 are both free roaming games; Gran Turismo, Carmageddon, and Mario Kart are all racers and yet they are very different games and cannot therefore be judged by the same merits. Halo and Stalker are both FPS but one is more of a tactical survival game while the other is fast paced action shooter that's all about fast action with big battles and different vehicles.
While I agree 100% that it doesn't deserve the hype it's received, I can list particular grounds for some hype. The sci fi setting is really great. The action is very fast paced. I can't think of any game with faster and more intense action than on Library levels, for example, in the first Halo where hundreds of Flood are popping up all around you. The variety of vehicles is also fantastic and each one is a lot of fun to play, more than in any other FPS I can think of. Halo 3 has some fantastic vehicle battles in open areas that can be replayed and enjoyed endlessly.
Ausdoerrt said:Or you can compare Carmaggedon to Burnout and NFS =)
Seriously, Halo got the fast-paced action and sci-fi setting from UT, Quake and HL series. It didn't invent anything new and didn't revolutionize the genre. If you're referring to single-player, it's worse than in Serious Sam: Second Encounter, or the original Unreal. The vehicles were only introduced because people liked them in BF and UT2004.
Seriously, it's a lump of mediocrity and collection of ideas from other games for people who have never played other shooters. The thing that defines it as mediocre is the lack of a characterizing feature.
maximaz said:I never said that it invented anything new or revolutionize the genre. It just does what it does very well. Quake, UT and HL are great games with fast paced action but it's very different from Halo type action. Those Library levels I mentioned, had crazy action; the rooms were filled with hundreds of flood creatures jumping at you from all directions. The vehicle combat is also on a whole different level. The action is just not even similar. There is alot of great action sequences that came as a result of the series being originally planned as an RTS. Again, it didn't invent anything new but it does what it does very very well. The sci fi setting is also very different. It's more of a blockbuster movie type setting than the one in the games you mentioned.
That's not good enough. When I pay $300 for an electronic product, I also pay for the convenience of being able to use when I want and as much as I want until the end of its lifespan. I shouldn't have to deal with the inconvenience of sending the broken husk of the device back to the manufacturer and spending days (or is it weeks?!) for the replacement unit to arrive, only to go through the same ordeal again a couple of months later.maximaz said:I aknowledge that there is a problem with 360 defect rate. I never said it wasn't so. You are definitely more likely to have a problem with 360 than the other two consoles but it's not like you can't expect a 360 to work. That's exaggerating things a bit. My main point, though, was
Which means that the money you pay for a 360 is not going to waste.If you do have problems with yours, you still get a working console for your money because of policies they have to make up for the trouble. Yes, it shouldn't happen and it's a fault but the bottom line is that consumers pay the least money for a console and they don't have to worry about it for 3 years because of the warranty. I'd say that they get a deal.
Heh, most of these games I would play only if someone stapled a controller to my palms. Halo, GOW and Crackdown? I had access to superior shooters in 2002. Fable? You have got to be kidding me, that glorified hack 'n slash is inferior to PC RPGs as old as 1997. Forza Motorsport? Another Gran Turismo wannabe, just what the gaming world needs. And did you say Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon? Sorry, I can barely hear you over the deafening noise of Sakaguchi's fans not caring. Finally, we have Dead Rising and Ninja Gaiden series, both very fine, but sadly insufficient to build the success of a game console on. Bottom line - XBox 360 *fails*.Yes, Playstation 2 was responsible for making those titles its own. PS3 didn't. It may not need to but the point is that PS3 itself hasn't done anything the 360 hasn't when it comes to games. Considering how great a console PS2 was and how successul it was, PS3 is the worst possible successor. That's why I have a 360 and a PS2 in my livingroom. PS3 adopted some of PS
2 titles but so did 360On top of that, 360 is now associated with Ninja Gaiden, Dead Rising, Viva Pinata, Halo, Crackdown, Kameo, Forza, Fable, GOW, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragonm and so on. Those are all very different games and they all define 360.
I wouldn't. PS3 right now is an even bigger pile of *fail* that the 360, at least in terms of game selection. However, chances are PS3 will be rescued by its PS2 legacy (many traditional PlayStation series have yet to get their PS3 iterations), while 360 will always wallow in its little mudpool of mediocrity, because the entire system is horribly ill-conceived and inherently worthless.The fact that 360 has a lot more exclusive games than the PS3, even if you don't count the ones that also made it to PC's. On top of that, most playstation games are now also or exclusively on 360, and according to most comparisons, play or look better. I saw absolutely no reason to get the original Xbox because I had a PS2; now it's reversed. If you have a 360, there is no reason to get a ps3 unless you want blu ray. They even removed backward compatibilty from PS3's to make the decision easier. 2009 will change things because a lot of promising games are going to come out for PS3, while 360 has a pretty weak lineup. However, up to this point, 360 has been a no brainer. Why would you pick something that's more expensive, has few games and very very few exclusives?
That's kind of a silly way of looking at things. After The Godfather came out, film critics didn't go around saying "Marty should pack it up because the best mob drama has already been made". With that attitude nothing new would ever get made. And I realize that you're not saying that nothing better than ARMA/Flashpoint will ever be made, but it's still stupid all the same. Maybe their games aren't the best, the most innovated, but neither are Michael Bay movies. The guy's still an idiot, and not an idiot I really like, but his movies can still be fun in their own stupid way. That's not to say that nothing made by them will ever compare to your own perfect image of an FPS.I don't know why anyone bothers to discuss Halo's contributions to the FPS genre, or even compare it to "serious" shooters, when PC has had shooters with both better gameplay and better storylines for years before Halo came out. <snip>That's precisely why any console that depends on shooters as its primary offering automatically *fails*.
MrBumble said:The first Halo game was released in late 2001 ( prior to Half Life 2, Unreal 2, Unreal 2003 so I don't know what you're talking about except for HL1 and Unreal )...it WAS good for its time. Not the best FPS ever but certainly not mediocre when it was released.