Comment Re:Damn kids (Score 1) 254
It was paraphrased from the movie BASEketball.
Comment This doesn't seem that bad. (Score 1) 1251
I don't see why this is such a problem. The theory of evolution through natural selection makes no claims regarding the source of life, only how and why it has adapted to the environment across generations. The "faculty member's or student's conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms" is reasonable so long as done in a scientific manner. To the best of my knowledge there are no methods currently for determining the origin of life, so it seems appropriate to research it.
If this is applied to protect non-scientific "studies" showing that a Jesus did it, it's bad. Research in directions other than the generally accepted theory is a GOOD thing for science.
Comment Let Other People Archive For You (Score 1) 498
If you really want access to data forever, "leak" it to rapidshare, youtube, 4chan, or something similar and then post to your facebook that you don't want people to find it. 30 years from now, just google it as you need it.
Comment Re:Ironic, no? (Score 1) 315
Sorry to reply twice to the same comment, but I found some interesting technical discussion at http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=4407 - note that these people are not affiliated with Capcom. Everything in this comment after this sentence is quoted from a post on page 5 of that thread:
Note that background colors on the NES must be in 16x16 pixel blocks - you get to use 3 colors for every 16x16 pixel section. You can put sprites on top to add more colors but this gets costly. From looking around on Megaman 9 this limitation would probably be an issue in many places.
The fade transitions between menus and such are too smooth. If you play a regular NES game with a fade you'll be able to see 3 or 4 "tics" of fade, sometimes using awkward coloring.
It looks like there's too much color cycling going on. You can have machinery flashing smoothly from black to green on the same screen as blinking red lights as well as two enemies and Megaman each with their own colors. There are different ways to do color cycling; maybe the green one is an actual palette changing, and the red one is being bankswitched or edited CHR-RAM. The point is that this is present in many places and it would take a lot of careful observation and playing around to determine if it's even possible.
The swinging platforms in Jewel Man's stage mentioned by dwedit are indeed a problem. Large movement like that is usually achieved on the NES by scrolling a part of the background, but if that was the technique then we should see all the platforms swinging at the same time. They are also at different heights, making the scroll method even more unlikely. The alternative is sprites, and the platforms are made up of too many of them. They would flicker and look awful, assuming they didn't use up all available sprites in the first place (the NES supports 64 8x8 sprites, and that includes Megaman and the enemies and anything else small that moves). The chains would add to this as well. Besides all that, the platforms/chains look like they move too smoothly for NES calculations...they might use a big look up table, but that contributes to a huge game size.
You know that boss that's two big blobs, fights like the Yellow Devil? That would be extremely difficult to replicate on the NES. When the blobs move up/down independently, and the floor also stays still, you're talking about a vertical split scrolling in different directions that is also timed such that the bottom of the screen does not scroll. Rest assured this is pretty tough, if not impossible (considering you're also keeping track of the rest of the game engine). Again, you could try it with sprites, but an 8x8 tile blob uses up all your total sprites (half in 8x16 mode). And there would be so much flickering you'd barely be able to see it.
The only reasonable way to do that is with sprites, and there are simply too many of them. 8x16 sprites could come close I suppose but that introduces difficulty of its own.
And when they explode?
"So what?" you can say. "We'll tone down the explosions." But that's one isolated example of this sort of problem, what about the whole rest of the game?
It's true that quite a bit is possible on the NES with enough effort. Most MM9 problems that look undoable might be able to be solved through tricky timed code. However when you get into that, there's usually not enough time to process the rest of the stuff going on onscreen (enemies and such).
Note that background colors on the NES must be in 16x16 pixel blocks - you get to use 3 colors for every 16x16 pixel section. You can put sprites on top to add more colors but this gets costly. From looking around on Megaman 9 this limitation would probably be an issue in many places.
The fade transitions between menus and such are too smooth. If you play a regular NES game with a fade you'll be able to see 3 or 4 "tics" of fade, sometimes using awkward coloring.
It looks like there's too much color cycling going on. You can have machinery flashing smoothly from black to green on the same screen as blinking red lights as well as two enemies and Megaman each with their own colors. There are different ways to do color cycling; maybe the green one is an actual palette changing, and the red one is being bankswitched or edited CHR-RAM. The point is that this is present in many places and it would take a lot of careful observation and playing around to determine if it's even possible.
The swinging platforms in Jewel Man's stage mentioned by dwedit are indeed a problem. Large movement like that is usually achieved on the NES by scrolling a part of the background, but if that was the technique then we should see all the platforms swinging at the same time. They are also at different heights, making the scroll method even more unlikely. The alternative is sprites, and the platforms are made up of too many of them. They would flicker and look awful, assuming they didn't use up all available sprites in the first place (the NES supports 64 8x8 sprites, and that includes Megaman and the enemies and anything else small that moves). The chains would add to this as well. Besides all that, the platforms/chains look like they move too smoothly for NES calculations...they might use a big look up table, but that contributes to a huge game size.
You know that boss that's two big blobs, fights like the Yellow Devil? That would be extremely difficult to replicate on the NES. When the blobs move up/down independently, and the floor also stays still, you're talking about a vertical split scrolling in different directions that is also timed such that the bottom of the screen does not scroll. Rest assured this is pretty tough, if not impossible (considering you're also keeping track of the rest of the game engine). Again, you could try it with sprites, but an 8x8 tile blob uses up all your total sprites (half in 8x16 mode). And there would be so much flickering you'd barely be able to see it.
The only reasonable way to do that is with sprites, and there are simply too many of them. 8x16 sprites could come close I suppose but that introduces difficulty of its own.
And when they explode?
"So what?" you can say. "We'll tone down the explosions." But that's one isolated example of this sort of problem, what about the whole rest of the game?
It's true that quite a bit is possible on the NES with enough effort. Most MM9 problems that look undoable might be able to be solved through tricky timed code. However when you get into that, there's usually not enough time to process the rest of the stuff going on onscreen (enemies and such).
Comment Re:Ironic, no? (Score 2, Informative) 315
I'm actually looking for the article - it was in the XBox Magazine that dealt with the release. In one of the MM9 stages there are platforms that rotate and your character will rotate with them. The graphical rotation was impossible, if I recall the article correctly. The closest article I can find online is http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3752/he_is_8bit_capcoms_hironobu_.php - it talks about the flicker and the limits on enemies on screen at once, but nothing about the elements that made it into the final release that would have been impossible 20 years ago.
Comment Re:not just japan (Score 1) 315
What was the last really good new game made by Namco? How about Atari, Konami, Capcom, or Sony? By new I mean innovative and fresh, not a really great sequel, so that it will refute the article.
Comment Re:Ironic, no? (Score 1) 315
As I recall, MM9 and 10 are impossible on 1980s technology. Instead, the design goal was to emulate the look and feel of the classic games.
Mega Man Designer Explains Japan's Waning Video Game Influence 315
eldavojohn writes "As one of the creators of Mega Man, Keiji Inafune remembers the days when Japan redefined video games. He believes those days are long gone as he reveals much in his criticisms of Japan's ailing game economy. Inafune says Japan is five years behind — still making games for older consoles with 'no diversity, no originality.' When asked why, he responds, 'A lot of designers, if they find a genre that works for them, they stick with it. A lot of designers just stick to a set formula. That doesn't work any more. You can't just tweak the graphics, work just on image quality. You can't compete on that. The business side is not keeping up with investment. You need to be prepared to invest 4 billion yen or more on a game, and then spend 2 billion yen more to promote it. But Japanese companies can't do that. So we're losing out to the West in terms of investment in games. It's a vicious cycle, a deflationary spiral. Because you don't invest, you can't sell games, and because you don't sell games, you can't invest.' He compares making games for Japan and the US to Sushi and basketball — two popular things but each done in distinctly different ways by the two nations."
Comment Re:Main mistake they made? (Score 1) 587
It was always Sheets'n'Shit anyway. Better flow.
Comment Re:The point of copyright (Score 1) 349
Are you European? Quantum quoted from the US Constitution correctly that our policy is to further the progress of useful arts and sciences, but in Europe the general policy is one of rewarding "Sweat of the brow."
