Video Game News and Miscellany

PatrThom

PatrThom

They're already selling on eBay for as much as close to $400.
That's not an asking price, that's the price it actually sold for.

--Patrick
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
PatrThom said:
They're already selling on eBay for as much as close to $400.
That's not an asking price, that's the price it actually sold for.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Surely that's a violation of eBay's TOS. I mean, they can't just let people go around selling things they don't own (and potentially may never), can they?

EDIT: I'm not sure how they deal with people selling items when they aren't getting them directly from the manufacturer (a pre-order is not a guarantee of getting one), but at the very least they've violated eBay's presale limit of a maximum of 30 days before the items availability.
 
Last edited:
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Eriol said:
I looked over the list, and it's shorter to list the games that I do NOT have already:
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Star Fox 2
Super Castlevania IV
Super Ghouls ’n Ghosts
Super Punch-Out!!

Ya. I literally have every other one of those games already, and except for Earthbound and the Kirby ones, I have the cartridges (Earthbound = Virtual console, Kirby = in the compilation for Wii they released a few years ago). And yes, my SNES still works, and I even got extension cables a few years back so I can play from my couch 100% no problem.

Why would I buy this? The only ones I'm even somewhat interested in are... well none of them. I've heard great things about Castlevania IV, but I never "got" into the series, so I see no reason.
Click to expand...
I think it's safe to say you may not be their audience.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

So the first functioning alien structure has been discovered in Elite: Dangerous. Alien structures had been discovered before, but only ruins. This one is active and is believed to be Thargoid in origin, with biomechanical drones doing unknown things, which seem to ignore intruders unless you attack them.

 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

That's so crazy to me that it's taken a while for such a thing to be found when two people found each other's location and discovered that No Man's Sky multiplayer was a sham within the first week.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Ravenpoe said:
So the first functioning alien structure has been discovered in Elite: Dangerous. Alien structures had been discovered before, but only ruins. This one is active and is believed to be Thargoid in origin, with biomechanical drones doing unknown things, which seem to ignore intruders unless you attack them.
Click to expand...
I don't play Elite, and I'm still curious what they're going to do with the aliens and how it's all going to play out. I guess the developers are doing a good job :)
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Zero Esc said:
That's so crazy to me that it's taken a while for such a thing to be found when two people found each other's location and discovered that No Man's Sky multiplayer was a sham within the first week.
Click to expand...
Well, to be perfectly fair, this base likely didn't exist until a couple patches ago. It wasn't happened upon by random chance, it was decoded through a long and lengthy process is sifting through other alien ruins and figuring out signal patterns. This eventually lead to astral coordinates that were used to find the planet.

But Elite Dangerous is BIG. Really big. It is an almost 1:1 recreation of the milky way using some pretty interesting technology and data, much of which was shared by NASA. We obviously don't know what all of the milky way looks like, but they've done a pretty spectacular job of simulating it using the same algorithms NASA and other space organizations use to predict what any part of space might look like[DOUBLEPOST=1498658288,1498657787][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, if you want to see the games best "researchers" experimenting with the thing... And accidentally turning it on

 
Eriol

Eriol

I'm reminded about how back in the early days of TechTV (early 2000s?) when X-Play was on, they actually had a segment about what their ratings meant, and about how many "3 out of 5" they were giving. It was their "the game is OK, not awesome, and don't pick it up unless you're a BIG fan of the series/genre." They gave FEW 5/5 those days, and their criteria for that was "I don't care if you like this type of game, this is awesome for everybody." Everything else hashed out somewhere else. And it worked for the most part.

Frank said:
That video is more like why IGN sucks than why video game critics suck.
Click to expand...
To a degree. They're the "object lesson" here though, and thus most of the comments towards them also applies to any other site where the reviewer is always changing. I think almost every comment leveled at IGN applies just as well to almost anywhere on the 'net that isn't a one-person reviewer.

His comments about "I don't like this genre at all, therefore this game sucks" is also quite valid. I think of this as related to movies as well, where I prefer to "know" what a few types of reviewers like, and then judge their comments about a movie on that basis. For example, there are reviewers who are basically only looking for "something new" and that's their criteria for good or bad. And then there's ones who appreciate something well-crafted, even if it's something we've all seen before. But as long as they're both open about such attitudes (or you can easily figure it out from what they've said before) then you're OK.

But you'll never have it as easy as a star rating, and if it's 5 stars, buy/watch. If that's what people expect, they'll always be disappointed.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

ThatNickGuy said:
The only thing worse than reviews is the "score baby" culture it created by making those babies assume anything below an 8 is garbage.
Click to expand...
I'm not going to find it right now (cuz I'm on lunch on mobile), but @Eriol already posted that study on how incentivizing ratings results in useless ratings.

--Patrick
 
Eriol

Eriol

PatrThom said:
I'm not going to find it right now (cuz I'm on lunch on mobile), but @Eriol already posted that study on how incentivizing ratings results in useless ratings.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Thanks for the mention, though I (briefly) looked, and couldn't find my own post on that. I vaguely remember this though, so I do think you're right. If you can find it later, all the better.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

ThatNickGuy said:
The only thing worse than reviews is the "score baby" culture it created by making those babies assume anything below an 8 is garbage.
Click to expand...
Don't forget the other side of it, which is developers get paid "bonuses" (which are often used as a negotiation tactic to offset lower upfront compensation) based on metacritic scores. So when you have reviewers who are sufficiently insiders/long-term industry people who get to know developers over time, you end up with a built-in reluctance to drop scores below an 8.
 
Jay

Jay

Meh.

Since we're posting trailers. After playing Ironman Xcom 2..... I want to play this game in the fall.

 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
I've been seeing news articles that (whoever currently owns) Atari has announced a new console, the Ataribox. Eventually I followed a link to learn more, and I needn't have bothered. Aside from mock-ups of the console's appearance, and claims that it will play both old games and new content, there's nothing. They haven't even shown pics of controllers. There are no specs, no specific games, no release date, nothing.

"Here is a new box. Market research suggests that consumers want new boxes that look like small versions of old boxes. This one looks like a box you liked very much, once. New box will play old games. New box will also play new games, we promise. New box has lot of new ports. Box."
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Am I the only one getting Ouya vibes about this new Atari? They're going on about the console itself but nothing else.

Also, I couldn't remember the Ouya's name and had to google "failed video game system Kickstarter."
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

A reminder that "Atari" has no meaning or reputation attached to it:
Wikipedia Atari article said:
In 1984, the original Atari Inc. was split due to its role in the video game crash of 1983, and the arcade division was turned into Atari Games Inc.[4] Atari Games received the rights to use the logo and brand name with appended text "Games" on arcade games, as well as rights to the original 1972–1984 arcade hardware properties. The Atari Consumer Electronics Division properties were in turn sold to Jack Tramiel's Tramel Technology Ltd., which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation.[5][6] In 1996, Atari Corporation reverse-merged with disk-drive manufacturer JT Storage (JTS),[7] becoming a division within the company.
On November 6, 1998, Hasbro Interactive acquired all Atari Corporation related properties from JTS,[8] creating a new subsidiary, Atari Interactive.[9] Infogrames Entertainment (IESA) bought Hasbro Interactive in 2001 and renamed it to Infogrames Interactive, later Atari Interactive in 2003, when Infogrames Inc. licensed the Atari name and logo from the latter and changed its name to Atari Inc.,[2][10][11] a name used for a company founded in 1993 as GT Interactive, which IESA also renamed to Infogrames, Inc. and acquired a 62% controlling interest in by 1999.[12] After IESA's acquisition of Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames, Inc. intermittently published Atari branded titles for Infogrames Interactive. On October 11, 2008, Infogrames completed its acquisition of Atari, Inc., making it a wholly owned subsidiary.[13]
Click to expand...
 
fade

fade

Staff member
For the next Fallout game, I would gladly pay $20 for DLC that makes the radio play more than 5 songs. On the plus side, I can sing that Big Iron song from start to finish now, so I've got that going for me.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

fade said:
For the next Fallout game, I would gladly pay $20 for DLC that makes the radio play more than 5 songs. On the plus side, I can sing that Big Iron song from start to finish now, so I've got that going for me.
Click to expand...
If you're still on New Vegas, can I recommend CONELRAD 640-1240? 55 new music tracks, including 29 authentic public service broadcasts. 2 hours, 20 minutes more of new music and 29 minutes of public radio broadcasts. It's a life saver.

Some of these tracks were so good that Bethesda decided to get the rights for them for Fallout 4.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top