Estil

What I'm most disappointed about is how and why hard drive space on new computers hasn't gone up.  I mean shouldn't we be up to at least 10-20-50 TB drives by now?

31 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

We saw a nice bump in graphical quality and resolution when widescreen aspect ratio became standard and games went from 480i to 720p. Unfortunately, the bump to 1080p wasn't particularly notable to consumers and the industry responded by ignoring framerate and shooting for another resolution bump (4K).

We've certainly seen some improvements in graphical quality in the interim, but I don't think you'll really see anything remarkable until games standardize to 4K/60FPS. That should happen at the start of the next generation, so hopefully we'll see some truly amazing, photorealistic stuff in 2023 and beyond.

Oh yes indeed, I did in fact at the time view the transition to HDTV in the early-mid 2000s as well as the transition from dial-up to cable internet as like the difference between black and white and color TV back in the day.  Thing is though, even though 4K TV's have been quite affordable all things considered, there's still hardly any 4K programs!  Unless I haven't been looking through my digital cable lineup closely enough or something.

Now to put that in perspective, you guys remember the Wonder Years episode from 1988 (takes place in 1968) called "Christmas" where the family hopes Jack (the father) would splurge on a new color TV for Christmas (which he did two years later)?  Well the reason for his hesitation and putting it off was classic sticker shock...$470 for what looks like about a 20"-ish screen.  Adjusted for inflation, that would be around $3500!!!  And by this point color TVs were around for a little over ten years already...as you can see here, thusly (a 1958 RCA Victor Color TV would've set you back about $800 or about $7000!!!! in today's money and before 1962 only NBC did color programming (hence the colorful peacock) and only once in awhile!)...

So please think about all that for those of you hoping to score a nice new 4K TV this Black Friday or Cyber Monday or whatever.

This is more the old fashioned kind of cheating but YES, if you use a cheating device or in game cheat codes or save states then NO it doesn't count as truly "winning the game".  Just like how back in the day if you wanted to be featured in Nintendo Power for breaking game records or something you had to take a picture of BOTH your monitor and the game console in the same picture to prove you do NOT have a cheating device attached...or nooooooooo Power Stamps for you!!!

Here's another way of looking at it...you know how with the PS1 (the first disc based console that really caught on) there's a lot more room for things and such it was no trouble at all to have real voices and cutscenes and such (yes I was in fact blown away in my college days seeing those on MegaMan games, especially the Legends Trilogy)?  So it wasn't just transitioning from mostly 2D to mostly 3D gaming...but also from "silent games" (you might a few seconds of spoken dialogue at most; cartridge couldn't fit much more) to "talkies" (with CD-ROM you'd have lots of room for things like voice acting)?

Thank God we had the good sense to preserve all those "silent" games as opposed to how most silent films (according to wikipedia it is guesstimated that around 90%ish of silent and 50%ish of pre-1950 "talkies" are forever lost  ) were either thrown away or ruined (the nitrate film used back then was very flammable and gradually deteriorated quite easily) because in terms of any sort of saving for future posterity, their 'tude for the most part was:

PS: As for "that far ahead", James Avery was just under 45 at the time of this episode...Will Smith reached that age back in 2013.  So yes "that far ahead" has in fact come and gone!

I have to do at least best two out of three per gen.  I don't think I have any of the "3rd party" consoles though (Atari 7800, TG-16, Saturn)

The games you cited though, that was after the PS4 was out for several years and game creators knew better how to get more out of the system.  It used to be though that even the first launch games of a new console blew away even the very best of what the previous gen had to offer.  That was the point I was trying to make earlier.

VR was indeed "the future" in the 90s!  And people were wowed by what it could do.  But when attempts were made to bring such cutting edge future tech to the home market, it was either too watered down to really do the state of the art tech justice (Power Glove, Virtual Boy) and it just wasn't the same... 

Or, OTOH, if they do try to release it with at least mostly all the state of the art tech, it can be way too expensive and it ends up being a clear case of trying to do too much too soon and without enough people buying it, it never really gets a chance to catch on.  Laserdisc, the 90s "luxury consoles" (3DO, CD-I, NeoGeo, etc), IBM Simon, and the Apple Newton are all perfect examples.

(old NA topic from back in 2013 (has it been that long ago?); I thought it'd be appropriate to bring back this discussion seeing as how we're about to enter the 9th gen next year)

Now, everyone here knows I'm very much a traditionalist retro gamer.  That being said, I have nothing against modern gaming at all, even though I don't really understand a lot of it (I don't do online gaming and what is up with all this stream and cloud stuff?).   But I can't help but wonder when I look at videos of upcoming X1/PS4 games (like that recent side-by-side comparsion video IGN just did a few days ago) I can't help but wonder...can't the PS3/X360 do the same thing if they really try to push the system?

See, with previous generation transistions, the difference in graphics (and sound) was like night and day.  Those of you like myself who were kids back when the SNES was first released in 1991, remember how blown away we all were by Super Mario World?  Super Mario Bros 3 clearly pushed the NES with everything it had but Super Mario World was so much more colorful and detailed and bigger.

When the N64 came out, remember how blown away people were by Super Mario 64 and how much crisper and less jaggedy the visuals were compared to the early PS1 games?  How about when the PS2/GC/Xbox came out and showed 3D games where everything didn't have those sharp points?

UPDATE: Here's another really perfect example of exactly what I mean...I just recently got a copy of Luigi's Mansion for the GC (the launch title if you recall; I had one right at launch but I stupidly sold it years ago). Now, this is only the launch title and I believe I read somewhere that Nintendo said it was only using about 5% of what the GC was capable of. But even so, it was very VERY clear that even this launch title looked WAY better than even the very best N64 graphics. And I was totally blown away seeing the Super Smash Bros Melee intro for the first time in 2001...I never seen graphics like it! And again, that was a game that came out right after launch! See, THIS is the kind of graphical leap we all fully expected with each new generation of gaming. But now when I see videos of the PS4/X1 games, I often can't help but wonder if the PS3/360 could do those same kind of graphics if the system was really pushed. But with the GC, there was never any doubt the N64 was no match for even the earliest GC games.

See what I mean?  It used to be the difference between generations was like night and day.  But now when I see videos of say PS4 vs PS3, why is it that I can't help but think that the PS4 isn't making it look all that much better?

Am I just blind?  Am I so out of touch with current gaming and pop culture?  Or have we reached a point where graphics just can't get much better?

UPDATE: Like I said I brought this back because we're about to have the first 9th gen consoles come out next year (PS5 and whatever the Xbox 4 ends up being called).  I imagine for those too, the graphics wouldn't look hardly any different?   Whatever happened to the 80s and 90s when we could see tech at shows and whatnot really pushed to the limits and it was clearly leaps and bounds ahead of what we currently could get in a home console/PC.  Maybe I'm just blind...I still haven't gotten around though to doing much on PS3, much less PS4 or PS5 so I guess there's that as well...

I would say 4th gen (GEN/SNES), most definitely true in terms of the best "console wars", but that's probably just generational bias.  I would imagine for most any gamer whatever console gen they grew up playing is probably the "golden age" for them just as much.  I mean a case COULD be made that a PS1 and PS2 era gamer thinks just as if not more nostalgically (is that a real word?) about their console/era than I do about the NES/SNES eras...right?  And to be fair the PS1 and PS2 had just as great if not greater an impact on video game history as the NES and SNES...right?

Garth Brooks once said he had a worn out tape of Chris LeDoux!

Like, oh he should've like, went full blown Valley Girl! I mean like, whatever!   And I don't have a vehicle for drive thru and no they won't let me do it this way:

Why not?  We had vinyl make a comeback right?  We didn't see that coming at first though (start at 15:00):

3 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

Have some of what this guys having

Please tell me that isn't real.  I hope it is indeed a bunch of Photoshopped bull!  Didn't they have a Captain Planet episode about this or something?

18 minutes ago, OptOut said:

I don't know about that... Throwing a huge hissy fit over meaningless bullshit is typical womanlike behaviour, in my experience!

I thought only toddlers were supposed to do that?  You know, terrible twos and all that?  I mean it's not like throwing a tantrum will really change anything, just make you look like an idiot in front of everybody.

Like Splinter and Donatello told Michelangelo in that one TMNT episode, these people have much to learn about patience.   They gotta learn to keep cool like eh, more civilized people?  I mean grown adults should know better and set a good example and all that right?

44 minutes ago, CMR said:

I remember after the first one came out.  I was wondering what all the hoopla was about so I grabbed the cheapest DVD release at walmart I could find.  I remember the girl at the register was giving me funny looks, and I was thinking "what's the big deal? can't a grown man buy a disney movie without being judged?"  It was only after I got home that I realized I had bought the sing-a-long version.  I still get a laugh out of that to this day.  Nice movie.  I don't really care about the sequel.

Yeah that was not cool the funny looks...I mean for all she knew you could've been getting it as a gift for your daughter/niece/etc.  All the more reason I shop online...

4 hours ago, CMR said:

 

I just said in the OP that is NOT the kind of mis-gendering I'm talking about.   And for someone who insists on being called ma'am that is among the most unladylike behavior I've ever seen  

Estil, you just won the so-and-so championship, what will you do now?

I'M GOING TO HOLIDAY WORLD!!!

Believe it or not Holiday World (Santa Claus Land from 1946-83) is the granddaddy of all theme parks, opened 8-9 years before Disneyland.  I always like to call it the Happiest Place in the Tri-State

The way that one is worded is kinda confusing (the one TriHart posted I mean) ...

That's weird, I thought you talk through your voice box (larynx)?

2 minutes ago, G-type said:

My voice sounds like I chainsmoke and drink whiskey all day.

So I guess the fact that I'm a boring tee-totaller doesn't help matters either?

4 minutes ago, empire said:

Wait, you're a guy? 

Oh very funny!

15 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I mean, if you have a chick's voice, you have a chick's voice.  You should try to use it to your advantage and get over-the-phone discounts or something. 

(joking! don't come at me)

Well I suppose it could be worse...

Now just for clarification, I am not talking about the kind of mis-gendering you've heard on the news recently regarding transgender people.  This is more the old fashioned kind of mis-gendering.

By that I mean nearly every time on the phone with customer service or whatever (I purposely don't mention my name at first because I know some might consider it a female name like "Estelle" or something) they call me "ma'am"!!  And it drives me CRAZY!!!!  I've asked around and people insist I don't have a woman's voice yet I get called "ma'am" on the phone nearly every...single...time.  This has occasionally happened even after I've said I'm the husband or son or whatever!!!

Now listen, (to sort of paraphrase Gretchen Wilson) I ain't never been the tough macho alpha male type.  But I am still a guy just the same, aren't I?   I mean is it too much to ask to not be referred to by female pronouns by people on the phone who are guessing gender?  I remember my first job at a Wendy's in the late 90s and its manual said for just this reason to not use gender specific pronouns at the drive-thru so you don't mistakenly call a male "ma'am" or a female "sir".

It just drives me crazy, it really does...I don't know what could be done about this, other than make a Darth Vader voice every time I answer the phone or something but I just had to at least vent somewhere.  Any of the rest of you have a similar issue?  If so what's the best way to handle it?  I know I shouldn't defensively say "I'm not a ma'am!" but it just bothers me so much I often can't help it...

2 hours ago, Johnnyboy113 said:

100% agree with every single word you said! (Edit: well accept the “if indeed there ever were” there were days like that here up until the early 2000s) And I come from a police family. Can you imagine how they feel about cops these days. The nypd is filled with morons now. Two guys that went to my high school that were always high are now cops. An ape and 2 chimpanzees can run a precinct here. 

Well obviously NYPD is a far different thing than my local police force so I imagine they are totally different things.

1 hour ago, MachineCode said:

I’m more about Global Thermonuclear War these days

A strange game. (and some REALLY strange war plans/strategeries!  Seriously, would any of those make any sense at all?)

The only winning move is NOT to play.

How about a nice game of chess?