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As the title may suggest to the intelligent gathered today, this rant is about the idiots known only as the general public.
I have decided to raise this topic today for two, count them if you wish, reasons. First:
People care too much about specs of a console. I'll come back to this later.
The second reason for this topic comes from a person who will remain unnamed. He doesn't visit this site, by the way.
Today he came up to me, stuck on a game... (Most people come to us when they're stuck on a game... just us, and that other kid... our nemesis...)
Another time brain. Anyway, this boy, my age, was stuck on Half-Life. He said he couldn't get past this bit. I mentally recorded the conversation for such an occasion as now.
Me: "What bit?"
Boy: "Oh... you know. That bit... not far from the start."
"Have you got past the lift that goes down into the green slime?"
"No."
"Have you got past the... bridge? The collapsing bridge?"
"No... no no no."
"Have you found your way around the ventilation shafts yet?"
"No... no ventilation shafts yet."
"...Err... Have you picked up the crowbar yet?" I joked.
"No." He was serious.
"Have you pushed the tray thing into the light thing? And seen all the aliens?"
"Aliens?"
Oh god.
Brain: "(Ask him if he's got off the train yet.)"
"Have you got off the train yet?!?"
"That's it! How do you get off the train!"
Unbelievably, he was quite serious. I'm not sure if it's just Pembroke, but we do seem to get more than our fair share of idiots.
This provoked me today.
Firstly, or secondly, whatever way you look at it, why people are stupid about consoles. Why do they care so much about specs?
No doubt in saying that everyone of you on here have met someone who has said that the X-Box is going to be the better console, because it has a "733" processor, or can push "125 million" polys a sec. Stay with me, even if you think you know what's coming...
In the real world, in comparision of SPEED, and not their own made up numbers, the X-Box has a 400MHZ processor, in the same league as Gamecubes 405, and PS2's near 300.
Secondly, the poly count. The X-Box will push around 6-12 million polys a second. The PS2 a few mill less, and the Cube the same. Spec wise, the X-Box is as good as, and in some places worse, than the Gamecube. But it's only the fact that Nintendo don't go blabbing it around that people aren't hyped up about it.
And finally...
A few days back, there was some news of footage of the X-Box, of a game running at 300 frames a second. Suddenly people were falling over themselves, laughing that the X-Box was superbly powerful... much more than any other system... Idiots.
Does anyone see the quite stupid thing here?
Your OWN EYES, cannot see above 40 frames a second. We are not capable. Games with 60 frames a second is nice, quite impressive, and looks just as good as 600000000000001 frames a second, and the X-Boxs 300 frames a second.
Stupid, or what?
"I was talking about a demo of xbox running at 300 frames per sec that grix mentioned...."
Ahh right... everything mkes sense now! :)
Speaking of whic... what is the situation with framerates/screen updates...
I used to think that movies update screens at 25-26 times a second... TV is something like 28?... But although computer games update a great deal more, even when syncedto the monitor/TV screen update, it can still not update fast enough to look smooth on display? (if that makes any sense?)
I was told the reson once, but I forget? ... any ideas?
Keep out of children.
#1: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.
#2: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to south to avoid a collision.
#1: This is the captain of a U. S. navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
#2: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
#1. THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE. WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE U. S. NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!
#2. This is a lighthouse. Your call.
METHOD
Some big rich companies get George Bush elected to president by spending lots of $dollars
Fill his innner circle with oil men and appoint an anti-environmentalist to run the environment "to give business more say"
Shut down a few key power stations for "repairs"
Put the price of natural gas up by 300%, saying "shortage"
Get the public in a panic.
RESULT
American public say sod the environment, we want more oil, gas and elecricity.
Big companies get to do the things they want to do.
Environmentalist have to bow to the new public opinion.