samurai-sam.com

Duke Nukem 3D had TEN (defunct)

Red Alert 2 had Westwood online (defunct)

Midtown Madness had MSN Gaming Zone (defunct)

Delta Force had Novaworld (still running)

Half Life had WON (since transitioned to a newer service)

Why do developers think that these are good? Even recently I purchased Borderlands for PC and it came with the worst of them all–Gamespy’s treacherous service. WON by Half Life was good, however the rest of the examples that I cited were pretty mediocre or terrible. Even worse is when the developers run out of money, or move onto bigger/better things and they cut off their old games.

Where does it leave the consumer? In the crapper.

I just purchased Duke Nukem 3D for 5$ US; and I was a bit disappointed that the online element was missing because someone decided to rely on an online service. Why can’t we have a tracker-like service for all online games (that isn’t game spy)? I realize there is probably a solution or three to get Duke Nukem working for online play again, but it’d still be nice to have out of the box compatibility with newer systems

It’s acceptable that some of these weren’t the best due to online gaming’s infancy at the time; however why do we still need this shit nowadays? It serves no purpose. Older games keep on getting cut off all the time because of it, and newer games find ways to completely dominate the market because there isn’t a universal system.

It is nice to see some developers fix their older games and reintroduce online play for free/a nominal charge; take for instance Aliens Versus Predator 2000 which was recently re-released on Steam; the developers threw in a new fully functional online system just because they kick ass.

Console gamers aren’t an exception to this practice of cutting off online play of older games as even Halo 2 (which is only 6 years old) has been cut off from online play, along with every single Xbox 1 title; for PC gamers we have modding communities that fix these things more often than not, but console gamers just got screwed over for the sake of ‘longer friend lists’.

A lot gets said about DLC’s affect on gaming; all I have to say is that a future with DLC is a future without community projects like Black Mesa Source.

Black Mesa Source is a conversion of the original Half Life game to the Source engine; its a collaborative effort of almost 40 people to convert this game for 0$. That’s right, the game is being released for free. Sure it might be a bit behind on its release date but free is free is free.

Imagine trying to tell an Xbox/PS3 user today that a map pack is coming out for free; they’d shit themselves, yet here PC users are with entirely free games coming out.

“It’s Dean Semler. He shouldn’t be allowed to use the Panavision Genesis. He uses its 360 degree shutter feature (something you can’t do on a film camera – and for good reason) which allows him to gain 1 stop of light without having to light the scene properly. So in short he is too lazy to light t correctly and uses a cheap option that makes it look like crap. He does it in all his films these days, such as 2012 , this film, Get Smart, Apocalypto etc. And it cheapens the look of all those films. “

I love the plethora of Mac fans who bemoan Microsoft for not sticking to standards; of course when Apple releases a product that doesn’t conform to standards its not such a big problem.

From the USB 2.0 specifications:

“High-power Hub Port (out) ICCPRT Section 7.2.1 500 mA“

From the Ipad requirements:

“PC with USB 2.0 port”

Of course, Apple wouldn’t be one to release a product which demands more than double the standard USB 2.0 power capacity and not properly tell customers about it would they?

Read more: http://www.neowin.net/news/the-ipad039s-usb-charging-caveat

There exists an entertaining collection of videos on youtube of people that enjoy plugging their speakers into wall outlets, here are some entertaining ones: