I'm in a ranting mood today, and we all know that makes for killer blog entries.
You know what I'm sick and tired of? Blind hate. Now you might be agreeing with me now, but ask yourselves - have you been guilty of this? Kneejerk reaction is "of course not!" but let's delve, shall we?
Hell, I'm guilty of blind hate - I was a Sega fanboy of the 16 bit era - I still am to a point, as I will follow Sega's releases and tend to give them some slack when it comes to releasing average games.. but back in the day, I'd blindly hate Nintendo, and all things Nintendo with no true reason. I thought the Game Gear was better than the Game Boy.. yeah, I was a moron.
But we grow and we learn as we age - The Game Boy blew the hell out of the Game Gear, and history proves it. Even Robotnik has a Game Boy now. But there is still hate in the air - while the Game Boy is undeniably the king of the old handhelds, the new "battle" between the PSP and the DS is going on, and their is blind hate on both sides. People blindly hate the PSP for not being an incarnation of the Game Diety, and others hate the DS because "it's for kids." (strangely, a lot of these complaints come from people 14 and -under.-)
We can all sit down and count off the pros and cons of both systems, but surely you readers out there cannot deny there is still an abundance of hate - and what percentage of said hate do you notice has any justification? Anyone out there hate the DS and actually ever played one? I know you can likely recall an occasion or two where they did - but what about the scores of others? And likewise the converse is also something to be taken into account.
Now let's get to the point that has been bothering the hell out of me - Vista haters.
Now I KNOW there is plenty to be upset about with Vista, but seriously I'm sick of all the hate. I have a laptop, with Vista, and I'm running plenty of 3D games on it quite fine. I haven't bought Crysis, but it honestly doesn't look very appealing to me - I know I could probably get maybe 10 more frames per second if I was running XP, but I really don't care about 10 more fps enough to make this thing a dual-OS machine.
However, whenever my friend comes over and uses my laptop for anything, the first thing out of his mouth is -always- "Ungh.. Veesta." and now it's gotten to the point where I've had enough and am blogging about this! Let me tell everyone a little story about Windows 95 and me.
I had a old, clunky computer my brother acquired for getting in good with some higher ups at his school - so, being a school computer it had two things as a definate. It had Windows 95, and it was an old piece of crap - pre-pentium crap. We're talking a 386. Now, the hard drive was pathetic - we had about 50 megabytes to play with. Enough, however.. to install Doom.
Problem was, Doom ran like crap. It ran like you'd expect from a 286, maybe a 186! BUT - if we shut Windows down and went to DOS before playing Doom we could run it full-screen at high resolution. That's the thing I'm getting at, Windows - in any form - takes proccessing power. The amount more than XP that Vista takes the high-end PC gamers notice and freak out over. In my opinion, if they're so determined to push their systems as far as they go for gaming, they should try and get a good DOS machine and get the games to run on -that-. It's amazing how much more juice you can get out of a machine that's not multitasking 50 sub proccesses.
So, now that we know yes Vista takes more effort to proccess, why am I so upset at the negative comments? Because 90% come from people who haven't even used Vista! People who might have never even seen Vista - even Mac users who never gave a damn about any version of Windows will join in on specifically bashing Vista.
When I'm over at his house, I personally can't stand using his XP machine. It's a desktop with about 3x more juice than my laptop - but it drives me nuts how long it takes for Internet Explorer to load. I'm playing EverQuest fullscreen on my laptop, hit the windows key and load up IE in about two seconds, check up stuff on Alla and click on EQ again - which restores in about 1 and a half seconds. Let's just say, when MS said that the Vists OS would "pre-load commonly used applications into memory for more efficient computer use" I didn't believe them at first, but now I actually do.
I'm not saying people should unanimously love Vista - I just wish everyone would stop hating it so much. But not just Vista - when I sat down to think about this blog I remembered the DS vs PSP debates, and how they often don't have anything to do with the actual systems and just degrade into shouting matches.
The same can be said about the "which is the best console?" arguments. In Pennsylvania, I had all 3 of the new consoles - let me say some things.
All the cosoles have pros and cons. You can live with any 2 and without any 1, you can live with any one and without the others, and you can have all 3 and enjoy them all for their own charms. You can also do without all of them and enjoy the legacy of classic gaming - it's certainly more affordable and you've got swarms of games to choose from.
Sadly, too often we see any discussion on the matter degrade into flame wars - immature fighting over who has the most fun.
People, if we stop stressing over what game systems, operating systems, or handhelds are better when we don't even have all the information - and just calm down, sit down and enjoy the games for what they are... I assure you, we'll all be having a hell of a lot more fun.
Thank you
My blogs keep getting pushed down due to crappy one sentence blogs that should be in the forums. This one is well written and raises some great points! Very good job, and I wholeheartedly agree with you.
-Arcade Braeden
Host of Review: Impossible
Co-Host of THE g1 Attack Podcast
http://g1attack.universpodcast.com/
I feel your pain...
Thank you, and yes I understand what you mean - I parooze the recent blog entries several times a day. I enjoy reading blogs from the many G1s that frequent the site.. however, I don't particularly care for "Hey! What's your favorate color of cat?!?!" with a body of "Mine's blue."
At least I've never seen one of those mark a top g1 post yet.. I must find who put this up on the top posts and thank them! It looks like it was Ben.. but he most certainly is a red herring. I say it was unaware Steve.
Agreed.
"People, if we stop stressing over what game systems, operating systems, or handhelds are better when we don't even have all the information - and just calm down, sit down and enjoy the games for what they are... I assure you, we'll all be having a hell of a lot more fun."
Truer word were never spoken. Ever.
May the gaming gods allow
May the gaming gods allow you into gaming heaven that was a masterpiece of a rant and i hope you are indeed proud of yourself.
GT: ApocolapseFour
Hate should just be
banned from screwattack !
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There are Games you might don't know
but that are still pretty damn Sweet...SWEET !
http://screwattack.com/blog/2110
G1 attack the ONLY G1 Podcast...
http://g1attack.universpodcast.com/
Agreed
Such a well spoken rant. Too many people these days are concerned about liking whatever is "the best". And if somebody happens to like something is not held in such a high regard (justly or not) others will often scoff at that person's "poor" taste. Then there's the person that likes something that it is not held in such a high regard (justly or not) but thinks everyone else is an idiot for thinking so little of it.
Also everyone seems to love top 5, 10, 20, 100, etc. best/most influential/worst/underrated/epic/whatever lists so much it really feels like we are trying to dumb down everything we possibly can so people can continue to scoff and persecute.
Yes, Haters are lame
Totally uncool and stuff... You can run modern PC games from DOS? Damn, I gotta look that up...
Well...
So far as I know, it is not possible to run modern PC games from DOS as they've been built to accomidate Windows based program structure.
HOWEVER - there are programs that let you run Driect X 10 from XP - if such effort can be put into that, surely there is some way to get a DOS based environment to run modern games.. and I assure everyone, there would be a definate leap in framerate by doing that.
However pt.2 - how many people will be willing to learn or re-learn DOS commands? No more pointing and clicking to get it to run! ;)
It's sad that simple things
It's sad that simple things like DOS commands have become a foreign language to PC gamers. Technically, as a Vista user I don't use actual DOS, but I think it still counts as I use the commands for the DOSBox emualtor. I love me some Duke Nukem!
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The Retro Game Zone
DOS nostalgia
I've used a DOS emulator before - for playing the original Elder Scrolls. Mhm, The Elder Scrolls: Arena. :) It's freeware now, in case anyone wants to download an absolutely astounding DOS based RPG.
Ahh, the joys of having to remember the /p /w to get the directory to stop and give you the chance to read all the file names and find the executable. :)
Well said.
People do seem to forget that they're supposed to be having fun. Who cares if a certain OS has the highest fps rate; if it runs well enough for you, it should be fine. And if you like a game or console everyone else hates, it shouldn't matter, as long as you're having fun. If becomes a frivolous matter of who enjoys the most universally approved-of games and consoles and fanboyism. Though I am a gaming nerd, given to bouts of fanaticism, yet I will say this: IT IS JUST A GAME.
I also agree with you on windows; it would run a lot better if you could just cut down on the amount of programs running in the background. I still miss DOS in some ways, and regret the loss of my old Windows 3.1.
cd..
I think the hate for the PSP
I think the hate for the PSP is semi warranted. I'm not saying that there aren't any great games on it, but most of the best games are ports from other systems. My favorites go something like this (in no particular order):
1. Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (port of two games one turbo cd and the other PSX/Saturn)
2. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion Wars (port of PSX game)
3. Mega Man - Powered up (port of an Nes game)
4. Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (original game, but sony shows a vote of no confidence and ports it to PS2 later)
5. GTA games (both ported to PS2, so no need to play them on PSP)
6. Twisted Metal head on (Another original game that was released on the PS2 later)
7. Puzzle Quest (original, but released on every platform ever)
8. Parappa (PSX port)
9. Gitaroo Man Lives (PS2 port)
The list goes on and on. There are some interesting games like Loco Roco and Patapon that are totally exclusive, but those are few and far between.
I think Sony has done a poor job supporting the PSP and 3rd parties have followed suit.
I hope the next PSP fairs better than this one. (and I hope it has another analog stick too)
Okay, I think you're missing the point
The act of justifying hate is the whole problem. I'm sure people only complain when they think a console/game deserves the hate, whether they've deluded themselves without playing it, or after actually playing it.
Hate is taking the act of warning fellow enthusiasts off a bung product, to just right-out flaming it for its flaws. I recognise the PS3's better qualities and understand some people will buy it for that. So instead of saying "NO, LOOK AT THE BAD THINGS ABOUT IT! GET A WII!", I say "Well, at least buy a U.S. console and games because the rising Australian dollar fetches it at a MUCH lower price, games too."
If somebody asks you "Which do you think I should buy?" then by all means list the pros and cons, but don't make it a personal war.
I'll reiterate what I thought this blogger's point was. Be analytical and share your opinion when asked for it. Don't just list a console's faults so people know which console is "winning".
Gonna call shenanigans on
Gonna call shenanigans on you here.
1. CVDXC is not a port. It is a remake with the port as an unlockable.
3. Not a port a remake from the gound up
5. Why not? Some people like to play games on the go.
7. And?
Really, you need to know what a port is and what a remake is. By your definition here FF4ds is a port.
Fair enough,bad termanology
Fair enough,bad termanology on my part. but the core gameplay is mostly unchanged in those games. it's not really offering something new (outside of the graphics). That's not to say that it's bad, but it's not as good as original titles (as far as sales are concerned)
In my defense I was kinda playing Devils advocate, because I actually really enjoy my PSP.
I agree that flaming is bad, but not liking something and telling others can be a good thing. Otherwise people might buy something because they haven't heard anything bad about it, or they are just uninformed.
I don't think disliking something is inherently bad. I think it's how you do it that makes all the difference.
Being an ass or bad mouthing something you have never actually used/played are definitely bad.
But telling other people to avoid a game if you think it's not worth their time/money could be good (if those people enjoy similar games to yourself)
XP
I have an XP that plays all my games fine, and my internet browser is Firefox, loads way faster. Infact I've tried a Vista. I really like XP better.
Can't argue with that.
Very good points for you - I myself haven't tried Firefox, so I have no experience with that.
...maybe I should see if my friend might be interested in trying it out, and I'll see how it runs on his XP machine.
Firefox?,nah
No way i'm putting fireflux on my pc,i tried FF and did't like it,there was just a few features that i like with the default IE than FF,but you gotta remember everybody got a different opinion about everthing
Great blog! I, too, am sick
Great blog! I, too, am sick of all the Vista bashing. I run some amazing games on it and consider it to be the best OS I've used. Everyone that has a problem with it either doesn't know what they're doing or they're trying to run Crysis on it without installing a graphics card.
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The Retro Game Zone
The reason IE is slow
The reason Internet Explorer is so slow on XP is because the updated version is just a poor port of the IE for vista, therefore taking forever to load.
Regarding Vista...
It's different for each person. Some people report no problems with it. On the other hand, some people are having difficulty finding working drivers for their hardware, some are having problem with the double-edged sword known as "SuperFetch", some are having problems installing and running their games, and some people who bought "Vista Capable" and "Vista Premium Ready" machines are finding that their hardware isn't powerful enough to run Vista effectively. It's ridiculous.
Yes, I'm one of those people who hate on Vista. A lot of people hate Vista. We have good reasons to hate on it, even without trying it for ourselves believe it or not. Why should I spend over $200 on an Operating System that has a good chance of not working right for me? Even companies like HP and Toshiba are offering downgrades to XP from Vista. I'll stick with XP until Vista becomes more reliable... or maybe I'll just skip Vista altogether and get Windows 7 when it's released...
Speaking of Windows 7, information about it was first released a couple months after the release of Vista. That's a pretty good indication that they know they messed up.
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SentryIII
Abandonware/Freeware PC Game Reviewer
http://www.youtube.com/user/S3JasonU
So true...
If only everybody could look at both sides of the playing field, then the world would have a lot less problems.
In regards to Vista vs XP, my laptop runs Vista, my PC runs XP, and I have XP installed on a partition on my Mac. Sadly, my PC is nothing more but an overpriced pile of metal at the moment because of a dead motherboard, but right before it died, I was weighing the pros and cons of keeping XP or upgrading to Vista Ultimate. So I decided to install a few games on my laptop to see how they'd run on Vista. I had a few tiny issues with graphics (nothing an updated driver for my graphics card couldn't fix), but overall, things ran...really well.
What I like about Vista is the interface - Microsoft has really tried hard to become almost Mac-like. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I dislike how the system tries to control every administrator command, but overall, I think Vista has been too harshly criticized by a lot of those who've never/rarely used it - just like you pointed out.
That being said, I don't think I necessarily prefer one OS over the other. They both run at about the same speed (granted my PC with XP has 8 gigs of RAM and a 3 gig Dual Core, whereas my laptop only has 3 gigs of ram and an AMD Turion 64 X2). I haven't run into any compatibility issues though with drivers or software that I couldn't easily find a fix for. Vista didn't particularly blow me away, but it didn't suck...it was just sort of meh, and it's a lot easier on the eyes than XP.
As for the DS vs PSP...it's common knowledge that only children and women play the DS. Duh. ;)
i have a PC with XP and
i have a PC with XP and vista on a laptop, ive encountered quite a few compatibiolity problems (no freaking FF7!!!!) and the admin stuff pisses me off, but your coment on the DS vs PSP, well, take a look at this
firstly let me show you the DS top ten on metacritic, if you dont know what metacritic is look it up
1 Mario Kart DS 91
2 Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, The 90
3 Advance Wars: Dual Strike 90
4 Jump Ultimate Stars 89
5 Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow 89
6 New Super Mario Bros. 89
7 World Ends With You, The 89
8 Meteos 88
9 Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 87
10 Elite Beat Agents 87
11 Kirby: Canvas Curse 86
12 Ouendan 2 86
13 Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time 86
14 Planet Puzzle League 86
15 Animal Crossing: Wild World 86
16 Advance Wars: Days of Ruin 86
17 Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin 85
18 Final Fantasy IV 85
19 Metroid Prime: Hunters 85
20 Pokemon Pearl 85
next to each game is its mean average score from the available reviews it has received highest scoreing game mariokart ds with 91/100 with 2 more games on 90/100 lowest scoring game out of its top 20 is pokemon pearl with 85/100 i agree with all of these reviews, look no brain training is in there, to anyone who owns a ds and is a real gamer, buy these 20 games, you need them.
okay now lets check the psp's top 20
1 God of War: Chains of Olympus 91
2 Lumines 89
3 WipEout Pure 88
4 Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of The Lions 88
5 Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories 88
6 Tekken: Dark Resurrection 88
7 Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children 88
8 Ridge Racer 88
9 Jeanne d'Arc 87
10 Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror 87
11 Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops 87
12 Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness 87
13 Burnout Legends 86
14 Patapon 86
15 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories 86
16 Daxter 85
17 Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow 85
18 Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters 85
19 Virtua Tennis: World Tour 84
20 Space Invaders Extreme 84
okay top game god of war with 91, i dont like god of war but meh, what do i know, i just play/make/review games right, anyway, no other game stretches past the 9/10 mark on psp, personally the only games i own on psp are in this list are lumines, ratchet and clank and daxter, and none of them deserve a 9, hell id give 7,8,7 respectivly, anyway, one thing worth pointing out its lowest scoreing game, FUCKING SPACE INVADERS, wow, you gotta be shitting me, seriously, its only one mark behind pokemon on DS as space invaders has 84, not much of difference although DS definatly has better games (although far much more filler titles like my english coach etc.) wow, i just noticed, look at number 7 on the psp list, ....... thats not a game, its advent children..... THATS A FUCKING FILM!, okay thats disqualified, the psp only has a top 19 games now, and 1 film......well done sony, youve recreated the game gear.
oh and yes i am over protective,....that and i like being right. yeah i should grow a pair,.... but hey throw all your insults at me, they wont defeat cold hard facts
Uhh...
...I think you just released the hounds on trick or treaters. O_o
That was Corey.. Maxifent Corey? "Back to you, virgin." Corey. The little wink at the end of her post signified the last sentence was in jest - compounded by the fact that it was the direct inverse of the rest of her post.
Just... uh.. watch where you're pointing that thing.
Easy there, tiger.
I think you missed the boat when my post set sail....oh about a semi-colon and parenthesis ago.
Relax - it's all good. Decker's response hit the nail on the head.
I love this blog
Today i was thinking how many people think that FPS's ruin the industry , The fanboys are killing the industry , You just get what your "gods" give to you and you hate every orher.
The only obstacle to enjoy gaming is the fanboyism.
Gaming Armageddon
I commented about this on another blog, but this is the very result that I feared the day that gaming became a mainstream hobby.
Fanboy-ism and brand loyalty has caused gamers to splinter off into factions, and the infighting amongst these factions - whether they be console, handheld or PC - is simply ridiculous. I would be lying if I said that such factionalism never existed in the world of gaming, but it seems that it's only gotten worse with the advent of a mainstream 3D gaming market and online play. And I, frankly, am beyond fed up with it.
People, don't let petty rivalries keep you from having fun. It's a terrible waste of time and it gets us nowhere.
As far as Vista is concerned, I can't comment on that because I own a Mac. And no, I'm not a Mac fanboy. Macs are no better than PCs. In my opinion, all computers suck.
There’s a difference
There’s a difference between hating something and just not liking it.
Vista: I never was enthused by Vista like I was with XP when it came out. One reason for this is because my system right now is a tad dated, and would run slower if Vista was on it, or I at least don’t feel like risking it. That, and I’ve heard it was too buggy sometimes, at least with nVIDIA hardware (which is what I normally use). I hear the service pack fixes lots of problems, but since my computer is working fine just the way it is, I don’t really see a reason to upgrade. I can live with 2D windows and only Direct X 9. However, if I were to get a new computer, and Vista was on it by default, I wouldn’t downgrade it, because I know that system in particular was designed to run on the platform.
Nintendo DS: I don’t view it as much of a “kid’s system” but more like a platform that just happens to have a lot of stuff that can appeal to a lot of people. Although it seems the weird brain training stuff is the most commercially hyped, there are still a lot of gamer-friendly titles available for the platform, more-so than the Wii (granted, the DS has been around for a few years longer than the Wii). I prefer the DS over the PSP not because Sony fanboys are rather annoying, but because the total library of games doesn’t interest me as much. That’s not to say there’s nothing good for the system, I’m just saying that what’s available for the DS interests me more, even if it lacks some polygons and texture filtering, a full multimedia suite, memory stick support and a built-in browser. Sometimes it seems as though they appreciate the hardware more than the software, and while I think that good hardware is important, it’s really what’s available for it that matters.
Sega:: I was definitely on the Sega side of the console spectrum during the 16-bit days. I don’t think I ever said I hated Nintendo though, I just didn’t care for them as much. Even though I loved and still love Sega, I’m actually happy they’re 3rd party and allied with Nintendo, they seem to work better with each other than against, if you know what I mean.
And that actually just made me think of something! Donno, I think it’d be pretty neat if Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft just said fuck it and work on a joint project for the next generation. Nintendo’s got the innovation, Sony’s got the accelerated hardware, and Microsoft has the online supremacy. In my opinion, it’d be pretty killer if they could all do something together, and that way everyone could be on the same side. It's highly doubtful, but still, it's wishful thinking.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's possible to simply just not like something instead of outright hating something, and if you do hate something, it should be because of personal reasons, not just to get on some sort of bandwagon.