hi_resurrection

The constuction of this post and the gramatical errors are all the proof you need as to what kind of people enjoy stories in games.

I clearly said there were exceptions. In fact, half the games you listed fall under the categories I mentioned. But in virtually ANY case (including the categories I mentioned) a good story makes a game better. Period. No debate possible. Absolutely dead wrong. From that view technically no movie needs a story either. You could just open up with a bunch of people running around, shooting stuff, etc... with no story at all. But, like games, a story makes it better. Some games, like RPGs, virtually require a good story to make them enjoyable. And, as stated before, virtually any game can be made better with a good story. How the hell can you even argue against the immersive experience a good story can add? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Films are like books, they tell stories. A videogames purpose isn't to tell a story. How the frig do you not know what the word game means? They are about interaction. One reason I love retro games is because they didn't get bogged down with shittin out a story to shove on the end of their games. EDIT: OK then, there is no argument for thinking stories DON'T make games better. So how come we are having one. How come I dislike Metal Gear Solid more than I would if there was no story? How come one minute I am playing through a game and the next I am watching a third rate film? How come a sequel to my favourite fighting game doesn't include one of my favourite characters just because the story tells me that a character has wandered off or has died (Namco thankfully ignored the story when they said that the God of Fighting killed Baek, Wang, Lee and Bruce etc and now they are back - game design over daft stories)? How come MGS1 is all set in one repetitive facility because that's where the story takes place, rather than being mission based woth lots of gameplay and environment variety? Stories can make some games better, but they can also completely ruin them. And the ultimate argument against stories - Why the f__k would I want to listen to a story told by complete nobodies who only include them because they think games NEED them. Written by pathetetic technical minded game developers who don't know jack sh!t about creativity. If you have any sense, you are just cringing with each line and event. If the game developers could make films they would be doing, but they have to settle for including their crap stories in a medium they have no respect for. My first post said that stories can make some games better by including back stories and motives for the characters (fighting games and others). These add depth to each character and therefore the game because people can look into the back stories. Games shouldn't thrust stories down our throat (MGS) as if the story is the only reason I bought the game. People bought the GAME because they wanted the game, not the story. When MGS 2 was announced magazines detailed what the game looks like, what new moves Snake has got, where he goes etc, because this is the game. They didn't list plot details because it is a pointless side issue. Playing is about playing, watching is about watching, why include both?

Fighters, sports games, and puzzle games all don't need stories. But I agree that pretty much all other games need one. I can't believe some of you people actually said that stories aren't important. That's absolutely ludicrous. A good story can add a lot to a game. Sure, a game can get by with a weak story and good gameplay, but I think it adds a lot to the experience if you have reasons and a goal as to why you are doing things in a game. It adds depth to the characters and allows for a more immersive experience if you can get into the plight or struggle of your character. No game NEEDS a story. It's ludicrous to believe stories are unimportant? OK. So Virtua Cop is crap, Sega Rally is crap, Gradius is crap, Marvel vs Capcom is crap, Crazy Taxi is crap and every other game without a story is crap? I must have found Ikaruga sh!t because I didn't pay attention to the story and I must hate Tekken 2 because I ignored the story when I first played it. Story is absolutely unimportant. Darts is a game and I don't dislike it because it doesn't have a story. games are to be played not to f__king listen a bad plot.

Here is a letter I sent to Edge magazine. ----------------------------------------------------- I want to offer a piece of advice to Nintendo about the generational hardware race they feel the need to constantly enter into. Give it up. Their refusal to do so smacks of a desperate company determined not to admit defeat. “Sony don’t understand games like we do, how can they beat us next time around”. Well it’s a certainty. Deal with it with the clever business decisions you were renowned for in the 90’s, not the stubbornness that has defined you in the 2000’s. I predicted Sega should quit hardware to concentrate on multi-platform software support before others in the industry thought it was even a possibility (before the Dreamcast was even released). That is what you would expect of a smartly run business. Did Nintendo truly believe the Gamecube wasn’t going to follow the Dreamcast’s footsteps? The whole world knows what’s going to happen with the Revolution, except for Nintendo that is. Nintendo simply cannot compete on their old terms anymore and are just throwing money away due to their own arrogance. Money that could be used to help them dominate a different sector of the industry, one where they do have an advantage over their rivals. Proof of this wasting of money and company resources comes from the fact that almost they’re entire software focus over the last three years has been to churn out reissues of old titles with ‘subtle changes’ and ‘additional features’, in a foolish attempt to recreate past glories instead of venturing forth and creating new ones. With the GBA, they tried to get me to buy all the SNES games I already own, which didn’t work, now they think an extra screen will convince me to buy my library of N64 titles all over again. Don’t have enough money to produce the innovative, original software you were previously known for? Ditch the line of stubbornly developed hardware releases that hardly anybody buys then. As of now, Nintendo games sell solely to an elite group of Nintendo fans who purchase the hardware specifically to play their games (myself included), and the minority of others who buy the machine, for reasons known only to them, over Nintendo’s far more dominant rivals. If Nintendo developed a new Mario or Zelda for the PlayStation 3 they would be selling to the world. And there aren’t many people who wouldn’t take them seriously then. All I know is; I’ve used my Gamecube far less than my other 2 last-generation machines and I suspect the same is true for every one else who owns all three. It serves Nintendo right that their arse is going to get kicked in two different markets this time around. Maybe that’s what it’s going to take to wake them up. ------------------------------------------------------- And here's some more; I started to lose respect for Nintendo when they dished off development of big titles to nobodies like Leftfield Studios and they are still doing it to this day. I don’t see any justification for why they don’t have time to work on Metroid or F-Zero themselves. They’ve passed the Star Fox brand off twice to two different companies. Do two new Zelda’s [and even those are little more than remakes] take up all of their individual teams’ time? Just how many people work at Nintendo? They can’t even afford to compete in technical specs so they don’t make a big thing of them. Sony and Microsoft’s resources and R&D will beat them every time. The reason Nintendo haven’t let on about the Revolutions’ specs isn’t because they are going to shock us with PS3 beating technology, but because they are embarrassed to reveal them, so they fill their announcements up with garbage about onboard emulators and try to convince themselves that a nice, small case is enough to warrant people to purchase the tiny piece of junk. Just because they could compete technically in two eras (NES and SNES) doesn’t mean anything. The industry was child’s play back then. Now it’s serious business and Fisher Price are trying to be Intel. The Gamecube’s absurd pad. Again, due to Nintendo’s stubborn refusal to accept other people’s successful ideas. It only works for games Nintendo themselves have designed. You can’t play Tony Hawk’s, Resident Evil, Timesplitters or Soul Calibur on it properly. Typical of Nintendo to say; sod the third party games. They yet again shot themselves in the foot. Then again, Nintendo would never just settle on more ‘generic’ designs that everyone knows will work. Because that is like admitting that Sony were right. Four facia buttons in a diamond pattern, 2 symmetrically aligned triggers on the top, two analogue sticks, and a D-Pad big enough to allow fireballs. No. Instead they make a crazy monstrosity that’s ‘different’ just to justify their existence in the hardware marketplace. Using cartridges, which was commercial suicide just because Sony and Sega were trying to prove that disc based media was the future. So what now? “let’s have tiny discs just to be quirky”…even though they only could hold a third as much data that a DVD format allowed. With the size of the upcoming Revolution, that we are assured will be “even smaller than the prototype when it is launched”, they’ll have a hard time trying to fit a DVD disc in it. All of these stubborn decisions only prove that Sony have had better ideas right from the PlayStation’s first announcement. They just can’t admit this, hence endless hardware releases, when they know they are going to get f_ckd over again and again. All this sounds scathing but with good reason. The reason for hating them so much over this is clear; If they only made games for other people’s hardware then they could concentrate on what thy are good at and focus all their cash into game development. The industry would be far better if everyone could experience a new Zelda or Mario game instead of the few that forked out on the Gamecube. Nintendo would make far more money if they only made games. Look at Virtua Fighter, when it was only on the Dreamcast and in the arcade (part 3), it was like a cult game and all the PlayStation fans were automatically assuming that Tekken was the be all and end all in fighting games. After Virtua Fighter 4 came out on the PS2, a machine that almost everyone has access to (and not just gamers), Sega’s beat-em-up gets rave reviews and is well known as a Tekken rival and sells like hot cakes. And that’s just a fighting game, imagine if Mario’s latest game was released for the PS2. Millions would own a copy. Everyone has heard of Mario, everyone has heard of PlayStation, but no-one has heard of Gamecube. I wanted Sega to give up on hardware when Dreamcast was announced, they stopped making consoles after the failure of the DC and went on to create their awesome games for other consoles and have enjoyed far more success and widespread acclaim because of it. The same could (and should) be true of Nintendo if they weren’t so obsessed with trying to beat the unbeatable. Sega and Nintendo are both the best in the business at making games but simply cannot make the best consoles anymore. Sega realised that they could have more success being a publisher of their own games, so why can’t Nintendo figure this out?

The layout only suits games that Nintendo have designed specifically for it. Even if Nintendo had more third party games on the GC, most games would be virtually unplayable on the 1 big button surrounded by kidney shaped smaller buttons. Just try and play popular PS/xbox games on this pad - Tony Hawk games, SNKvsCapcom, Soul Calibur 2 and TimeSplitters2 are all harder to play due to the insane controller. Remember how the button layout is on the arcade version of Soul Calibur? It's the exact same as the PS2 and Xbox version. The horizontal slash wasn't a bigger button and the blocking wasn't done on an analogue trigger. The pad is just awful.

Let's just hope the next Nintendo controller doesn't look like a brightly coloured rubberglove filled with jelly with milk button tops for buttons. And the reason Nintedo don't have 3rd party support is because they don't deserve it. The only games that Nintendo won were the Resident Evil games (and I hate playing it on the worlds smallest d-pad). I'm willing to place a bet on the PS3 (and maybe the 360) kicking the f__k out of Nintendo yet again.

YES! That is absolutely correct. I wish more people would think that way. For me, the plot just has to be plausible enough for the gameplay mechanics. Not that I don't enjoy a game with a good plot but there are other factors more important to make a game good. I think a good plot is only necessary in RPGs. But it's not really the plot that is necessary, it is the story telling mechanics. A good game developer can take a simple aliens attack Earth plot and make it an engrossing epic (Half-Life) while bad ones just use boring cutscene exposition. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah. That's right. A story is only needed to set the scene for why you are doing what you are doing it. Twists and turns of the plot (MGS and most other modern adventure games) are absolutely not needed in videogames. And yeah, I agree that RPGs should have stories, but no other type of games needs anything beyond scene setting and a character backstory or two (SF, KOF, Tekken etc).

I'll just share my opinions on Nintendo (hardware deparment). It's about time Nintendo gets the f__k out of making hardware. Sh!t GBA and DS remakes, garbage Gamecube that looks like a Fisherprice kids toy and has got about 4 good games (that could have come out on PS2 or Xbox if Nintendo only make software like Sega), and now the cr@p Revolution that's only selling point is how small it is. But I still think 3 failed consoles in a row still won't get Nintendo to realise they are no longer the top dogs in hardware. Ever since the SNES's success, Nintendo has been fighting a losing batte and will continue to do so until they become bankrupt.

Street Fighter 2 (and others in series). Because there was no story unless you really wanted to know it. The story didn't get in the way and if you wanted to find out the stories behind the characters, they were awesome. BTW - stories in games are not important.

Thanks a lot for trying. I also tried searching and came up with nothing. I hope someone knows because I'm getting Pi$$d off.

Hi, If anyone has an idea how to get it back the way it was, please reply because it is really bugging me having to right click a folder everytime I wanna open it. Thanks again.

Hi, I recently tried to change what icon the default folder in Windows XP looks for.( I wanted grey folders instead of yellow). Anyway - when I double click a folder, it opens a search window instead. When I right-click a folder, Seatch is at the top of the list in bold, and open is further down. How do I get it back so that Opening a folder is the default action? Thanks.

Yeah. But you can save the game so the code will always be activated (all characters and outfits etc) right? I will probably have my original save (with not many outfits etc) to play 1 player games such as time attack and survival, and I will use another save on my other memory card to play versus matches with all the customizations. Will this work? Thanks again. EDIT: Will I be able to enter my code and still save the game as normal afterwards. Eg/ can I enter the code, unlock all the items, get a time in time attack and save my game? Will it load up next time with all unlocked and my time attack time? It should do right?

Thanks for the site Agozer. I found some Action Replay Max codes to get the things I wanted. I am thinking of buying this product. But I want to know if I enter a code to unlock something (all items and colours in Tekken 5), will they stay unlocked if I save the game to my memory card. And will it affect my current game save? Anyone who knows how these products work should know. thanks.

I am thinking about buying a Max Drive for the PlayStation 2 so I can download game saves and use them on my machine. Does anyone know any websites to download save game files from other than gamefaqs.com? They are hard to find because I need European files (of course, the majority are North American). I am wondering if there are any sites that specialise in save files. I have never been tempted to use anything like this before but unlocking things in games nowadays is ridiculous. I would like to play Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution and Tekken 5 with any colours and customisations I want, but that would take me 5 lifetimes to unlock the b@stards. So does anyone know where I can find these files? Thanks a lot.

Has anybody played a good copied version of this game ? I downloaded it and burned it onto a CD-R and takes ages to load each part of the game as it freezes all the time. The file I downloaded was a 204mb Rar and extracts to 806mb with a 32mb Sub file. Most Dreamcast games include all music and FMVs when they are over 700mb but this one doesn't have any music. Is it just this file or is this game too big to fit on a CD-R? Have all versions lost the music to make it a decent CD-R size? I would just buy this game but it is incredibly rare in the UK as it was never released.

I tried the DC-IE boot CD (thanks a lot Gryph ) and the games still run in 50hz mode. I think the DC-X boot CD may work but it is impossible to find. Anybody else know which boot CDs may fix my PAL nightmares? thanks

Yeah, most PAL games have the option to choose 60hz, but a lot of games are NTSC and when playing on a PAL machine, show black borders. I am looking for a boot CD where you can specify the video mode you want the game to run in. EDIT: to Agozer - The borders are always getting smaller and since the DC, lots of games have 60hz options. The borders I get when running an NTSC game on my PAL DC are similar size to games from the SNES days, ie: too big. PS: I f***ing hate PAL.

I have tried the Utopia 1.1 and 1.3 boot CDs (the ones with the spinning transparant reindeer thing) and I'm wondering if there are any better boot discs worth trying. I have a PAL Dreamcast and when I run NTSC games (jap or US), I get some pretty big black borders at the top and bottom of the screen. Is there a boot disc that allows me to force NTSC or PAL video modes or do all discs just use default options that cannot be changed. Thanks.

I wouldn't be able to take mine out to play official games, but I just remembered that I could use my PS2 to play these. So never mind. I'll just use my soon to be chipped PS1 to play import and back ups and use my PS2 for official PSone games.

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to go with Agozers suggestion (the Stealth 4 mod chip). I was looking around and I saw that there was a newer 'Stealth V mod chip' and I will probably go for that. Although I live in the UK and there aren't any internet shops that sell chips that I could find so I'm going to have to pay out about £15 for the chip and £10 shipping. Thanks for the help. K-dash - does your hacker thingy stop some of your games playing music or have you seen any problems with loading some of your games (official, import or CD-R copies)?

thanks. but will that work on the older grey PlayStation models? If not, which chip should I opt for? And can anyone tell me if chips will affect the games I already own? As I obviously will not be able to take out the chip to play my official games.

I have a few questions about PlayStation mod chips. I bought a boot disc for the PlayStation 1 so I could run my import and back-up games on my machine without having to have it chipped. The boot cd was a bad idea it turns out. With my cr@p Breaker Pro disc, even original bought copies of games don't play perfectly if I boot them up with my boot disc. they stick at the same points everytime while trying to load and a lot of my games fail to play the music. I want to know if there are different types of chips that work differently or if there is just a standard chip that works the best. If there are multiple, I would like to know which one is the best/most compatible. I also want to know how well they work. Does every game work exactly as it should or do you lose sound on games or do some games fail to even load when a mod chip is fitted? Thanks.

I tried burning it with CloneCD and the music still doesn't play. When I insert the CD into my PC, the music files appear as WAVs when the CD auroplays. I tried inserting my official bought copy of Wipeout 3 CD and the music files on that are WAVs exactly the same. So I'm guessing it has to be my Breaker Pro CD as official games have the same problem (Tekken 1, Ridge Racer 1 & 2 and Wipeout 3) when loaded first with my boot cd. Looks like I'm going to have to get a different boot CD or send my machine off to be chipped I e-mailed the guys I bought my CD from and they say it must be my hardware, But when I run my official games without my Boot CD, they run perfect. Does anyone else have a PlayStation Boot CD to play import or back up games? And if so, does it work perfectly? Thanks.

Oh, OK. Thanks for the advice.