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Comment Games will drive some upgrades (Score 1) 471

by sho-gun (#37838508) Attached to: 10 Years of Windows XP

Funny this story came out today. I just put a new hard drive in my desktop today and installed Windows 7 on it. I have
been using XP since beta. Now its going to be a bit of a pain to migrate my data over. There's no 1-step upgrade path
from XP to 7. Yes, I know about Windows Easy Transfer and will use it to copy the profiles over.

The primary, and just about sole reason for the new OS?

Battlefield 3.

No XP / directx 9 support. It also supports Vista, but I tried it in the past and hated the performance.

I have a feeling there are going to be many more "no DX9" games soon, including M$'s own "Flight".

Comment Re:Learn your AVC's (Score 1) 567

by sho-gun (#37152700) Attached to: Most People Have Never Heard of CTRL+F

My GF constantly amazes people at her workplace with her amazing ALT-TAB method of quickly switching between programs...

I work with network engineers, some of which have been in the industry for 20+ years. They are amazed at my alt-tab
skills. They never knew it existed. On multiple OS's too. Oh and alt-enter to fullscreen a DoS window was a pretty big revelation to them as well.

Comment Re:What is your favorite pinball machine? (Score 1) 110

by sho-gun (#33269818) Attached to: Keith Elwin Wins Pinball World Championship

The original Black Knight was IMHO better. It was far more challenging and was around the time when
Williams used some cool-ass sounds. Of course that was back in the heyday where the arcade operators
were pinball fans and kept the tables in top shape.

The first High Speed ranks up at the top as well. Other Williams honorable mentions: PinBot, Adams Family,
Twighlight Zone. F14 was cool (I wonder how many flippers operators went thru with those extra strong kickbacks)
but way too easy in most arcades.

Bally favorites: 8Ball Deluxe, Silverball Mania, Space Invaders. Old-school Capn Fantastic and 8ball were a challenge too.

Gotleib: Hauted House was probably my fav. The 70's style mechanicals based on card games etc. were always fun.

Anyone remember Atari's oversized Hercules and Superman tables with the balls that must have weighed 10lbs each?

Ahh.. its a shame Bally and Williams moved on to the slot machine biz. But you can't blame them because there's
huge money in slots nowdays. They certainly seem to pour the creativity into them.
Space

Submission + - John Glenn: Keep space shuttles flying

Submitted by mcgrew
mcgrew writes: The AP is reporting (via Yahoo) that Mercury astronaut John Glenn has some very logical reasons to keep the shuttle flying until a replacement is built.

Glenn doesn't believe the general public realizes what's happening on the space front. "Going to Russia and being, in effect, under control of Russia for our space program just doesn't sit right with me and I don't think it sits well with the American people, or won't, either," said Glenn, a former U.S. senator who rode the shuttle into orbit in 1998 at age 77. He turns 89 next month. Glenn said little if any money will be saved by canceling the shuttle program, considering all the millions of dollars going to Russia for rocket rides. At least two shuttle flights a year could keep the station going and the work force employed, until something new comes along, he said. The former astronaut wonders what will happen if there's an accident and Soyuz rockets are grounded. He supposes the space station — a $100 billion investment — would have to be abandoned. He also worries scientific research at the station will take a hit if experiments have to be launched from Russia and have no way of getting back to Earth in bulk.
The Almighty Buck

How Do You Measure a Game's Worth? 188

Posted by Soulskill from the if-it's-frags-per-dollar-then-quake-live-wins dept.
RamblingJosh writes "Video games can be very expensive these days, especially with so many great games on the horizon. So I wonder: how exactly do you get the most gaming entertainment for your dollar? '... the first thing I personally thought about when approaching this was money spent versus time played. Using Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions as an example: I bought the game for about $30 Canadian, and played it for roughly 85 hours. That comes out to 2.83 hours per dollar spent, a pretty good number. In this case, the game was a lot of fun and it was cheap, and so the system works fairly well. There are so many other things to think about, though. What if the game wasn't so good? What about the fact that it's portable? ... What about the new content? Multiplayer?'"
Role Playing (Games)

Genre Wars — the Downside of the RPG Takeover 248

Posted by Soulskill from the you-gain-1912-experience dept.
Phaethon360 writes "From Bioshock and Modern Warfare 2 to even Team Fortress 2, RPG elements are creeping into game genres that we never imagined they would. This change for the most part has managed to subtly improve upon genres that needed new life, but there's a cost that hasn't been tallied by the majority of game developers. 'The simple act of removing mod tools, along with the much discussed dedicated server issue, has made [MW2] a bit of a joke among competitive players. Gone are the days of "promod," and the only option you have is to play it their way. If Infinity Ward are so insistent on improving the variety of our experiences, they don’t have to do it at the expense of the experience that many of us already love. It really is that simple. If they don’t want to provide a good "back to basics experience," they could at least continue to provide the tools that allow us to do that for ourselves.'"
Role Playing (Games)

Looking Back At Dungeons & Dragons 189

Posted by Soulskill from the lightning-bolt dept.
An anonymous reader sends in a nostalgic piece about Dungeons & Dragons and the influence it's had on games and gamers for the past 36 years. Quoting: "Maybe there was something in the air during the early '70s. Maybe it was historically inevitable. But it seems way more than convenient coincidence that Gygax and Arneson got their first packet of rules for D&D out the door in 1974, the same year Nolan Bushnell managed to cobble together a little arcade machine called Pong. We've never had fun quite the same way since. Looking back, these two events set today's world of gaming into motion — the Romulus and Remus of modern game civilization. For the rest of forever, we would sit around and argue whether games should let us do more or tell us better stories."
Image

Own Your Own Fighter Jet 222

Posted by samzenpus from the only-one-on-the-block dept.
gimmebeer writes "The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and has a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to 1. That means it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight against the best the US had to offer, and now it can be yours for the price of a mediocre used business jet."

Comment Think of this however ... (Score 1) 837

by sho-gun (#30589138) Attached to: Uniforms For the Help Desk?

I tend to think that if management is pushing this down, then there's probably been an issue with the IT team dressing appropriately.
I've been in large companies over the years and some of the IT people really pushed the bottom end of "business casual".

You have to think about this though:
The outsourced company they could hire to replace your department will almost definately wear some sort of team shirt when they are in the office.
In fact, I bet they'd be happy to.

In my current job, the entire network engineering team was given a full set of various style company logo shirts. We are to wear these
when visiting customer and vendor sites, or perhaps on days when there are meetings with various in-house departments.
I don't have a problem with it. It isn't a hard rule to follow. There's nothing wrong with projecting a consistent professional company image
when interfacing with the public or other companies.

The shirts are also good to wear on days when visiting head-end buildings working on racks or running wiring or fibers along the rails where
all the nasty dust bunnies are. No sense in dirtying up personal clothes :)
Music

ASCAP Seeks Licensing Fees For Guitar Hero Arcade 146

Posted by Soulskill from the understanding-is-too-much-effort dept.
Self Bias Resistor writes "According to a post on the Arcade-Museum forums, ASCAP is demanding an annual $800 licensing fee from at least one operator of a Guitar Hero Arcade machine, citing ASCAP licensing regulations regarding jukeboxes. An ASCAP representative allegedly told the operator that she viewed the Guitar Hero machine as a jukebox of sorts. The operator told ASCAP to contact Raw Thrills, the company that sells the arcade units. The case is ongoing and GamePolitics is currently seeking clarification of the story from ASCAP."

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