Linkstew

Just skimming the news for the week, here's what catches my eye:

• Crazy Taxi 3 is coming first, and possibly exclusively, to the Xbox. D'oh. But then again, I haven't particularly cared for what I've played of Crazy Taxi 2, so perhaps it's for the best. (See Benjy rationalize away Xbox's every advantage).
• Here are some pictures of Pokemon Advance. While I'm interested in this game, there's absolutely no getting around the fact that the graphics are very disappointing. There better be some rockin' GameCube/Game Boy Advance interaction to make up for the graphics.
• Oh, Mario Tennis (And Mario Golf, but that's less exciting) is coming to the GameCube. Mario Tennis for the N64 was a blast. Now where's Mario Party 4?
• The notoriously harsh Famitsu gave the GameCube exclusive remake of Resident Evil (known as Biohazard in Japan) a 39/40. Wowie. I might have to give this game a try, though I've never played any of the Resident Evil games to date.
• Finally, some Sony guy has some interesting ideas about where he thinks video game consoles will go. Here's my favorite imaginary scenario involving this idea: The PS2 becomes even more popular, to the point that it's considered to have a monopoly on video game hardware. Then, Sony gets in trouble for trying to sell TVs with its Video Game monopoly. Heh, one unlikely scenario amongst hundreds.

Tonight while browsing Yahoo!, I came across an ad which told me "Taco Bell is giving away 6,755 Xbox™ systems."

"6,755?" I mused. "Isn't that something like... half of the Xbox launch numbers?" ;-)

Well, maybe they're just trying to create a shortage, so they can repeat the success of Sony's PS2 over-hype under-deliver machine. Eh, we'll see.

Today I finally got the PS2 I ordered a week and a half ago. Thanks to EB Games refusing to complete my order unless my shipping address was associated with my credit card, I didn't have a shiny new PS2 to play with last weekend following midterm hell. Though the problems I've had with shipping addresses and my wannabe credit card irritate me to know end, I guess I appreciate their efforts to protect my money. I really should just get a real credit card. It'd solve 84.78% of my problems, while only introducing 34 1/2 new problems into the complex equation of my life.

I got the package within half of an hour of getting to the office this morning, which was unfortunate. All day it sat by my side, calling to me. And yet I couldn't go home and play with it, because I had class, and had to work on a cs project, and had to do some work. An eternity later, I made it home with my package under arm.

The unit itself is very sleek, but it's too big. If I were Sony, I would have made it as wide as the discs, and made it as tall as necessary. It feels very solid compared to the PlayStation, for example, but it makes me wonder how they used all that space, especially when I look at the puny Dreamcast sitting next to it. I don't like the tray loading drive at all. The system has to be on (there's a switch in back) before I can eject the tray to put in my game. The system is also pretty noisy, though I imagine the Xbox will be even worse. My final real comment on the system is that the LEDs on the box are beautiful. One is blue and one is green, and though they're rather harsh and bright, their unique colors make them super cool to look at. No boring red LEDs... except for on the controller. Oops. Way to drop the ball, Sony! A nice blue glow from my controller would have completed the effect.

The first game I popped in there (after turning it on, because I couldn't put in a game until it was on) was Star Wars: Starfighter. This game is the reason I got a PS2. Well, that and the ability to play my PlayStation games. The first thing that hit me about the game was that it took forever (and an evening) to load. After way too many loads, I finally got into the game, had a little fun, and crashed. Upon crashing, I was very displeased to see that the game had to reload the level. As far as gameplay goes, it's pretty much a complete compromise between a simple arcade shooter and a complex computer space flight simulator. This is a good thing. There's a lot of flexibility, but there isn't so much that it'll bog down the casual gamer. Though I played for awhile tonight, I'm still working on perfecting the control. It takes awhile to master, but I'm having fun with it. My only real problem with the game is the horrendous load times. Well, that and the slight visual glitch that happens when the "Mission Completed" banner pops onto the screen. What a shame. So close.

As for SSX -- I didn't spend that long playing it. The load times weren't nearly as bad as Starfighter, but the graphics weren't nearly as amazing nor the courses nearly so complex. SSX looks to be even more difficult to master than Starfighter, but I had a lot of fun just playing it for a few minutes. It made me want to get out and go Snowboarding, which must mean that it's doing a pretty good job. Even the crashes in the game make me wince and think "Ouch! That hurt!"

So recently I noticed a couple of movie previews featuring songs by The Offspring, which is sad because it doesn't strike me as the sort of thing The Offspring would go and do. One of the movies was Monkeybone, which has gotten less than stellar reviews, and I cannot remember for the life of me what the other preview was. All the same, it struck me as very unusual.

Until I remembered The Offspring's mp3 plans, and how Sony subsequently smacked The Offspring down, and I realized that Sony was further getting back at The Offspring for *gasp* planning to give away music by selling Offspring music which Sony effectively owns to bad movies. What a shame.

On a side note, Monkeybone is guilty of other dirty advertising tricks, notably "By the director of Nightmare Before Christmas." You see, if you're like me, you'd have thought that Tim Burton directed Nightmare Before Christmas; But he didn't. Between thinking it was a Tim Burton film and The Offspring in the preview, the trailer for the movie actually got me curious enough to read a review about it. Dirty Rotten Bastards.

When I was in San Francisco on Friday, I saw a lot of guys probably being paid next to nothing wearing Star Wars Starfighter t-shirts and handing out stickers, which reminded me that Star Wars Starfighter comes out very soon now for the PlayStation 2. So when I got home, I went and watched a lot of movies of Starfighter, and I watched a video about the making of Starfighter, and I became very excited about this game. In fact, I think it's safe to say that Star Wars Starfighter is the reason that I now actually want a ps2.

Well, that and I went and looked at some other ps2 games that are coming soon, and two others really caught my eye. First up is Gran Turismo 3. I liked the first two Gran Turismo's, but the graphics always got in my way. I can handle graphics that aren't trying to be real, but the first two GT's were trying to be as real as possible on the psx, which wasn't up to snuff. Gran Turismo 3, however, looks like it might be my holy grail of racing games.

And finally, there's Zone of the Enders, which features gigantic robots duking it out. The story looks intricate, the graphics in the video's I watched were great, and if nothing else, Z.O.E. will come with a demo of Metal Gear Solid 2 (aka, the game) when it's released in April.

So there you have it. The three or four games which have turned me from being indifferent towards the ps2 to rather strongly wanting a ps2.

Somehow I ended up at a site that seems as positive towards Windows as most of the Mac and Linux sites I frequent. And then I found several articles talking about the future of Windows, which is Code Named "Whistler", and which will probably be called Windows.NET when it ships (Wonder how much Microsoft paid for Windows.NET when they realized they wanted it?). The are articles that start with the earliest glimmers of Whistler, things in between, and now on Windows Whistler Beta 1.

For better or for worse, there actually a lot of new interface ideas being thrown around in that soup, and it'll be interesting to see what ultimately emerges. Based on what I'm seeing, however, I do think that it will almost entirely be an improvement on what Windows is right now, even if the interface still has other fundamental flaws which Whistler isn't even going to come close to addressing.

All the same, I find myself being in the unique position of actually being curious about a Microsoft Operating System. Never before now have I wondered what will come of a system, but I'm almost looking forward to finding out how well Whistler will smash all these ideas together.

Between all the new ideas and simplification in Whistler, and all the new ideas and simplification in Mac OS X, it really looks like the next generation of Operating System wars is going to be very interesting. Both systems should be on equal footing as far as stability goes, even if OS X offers more things for the unix geek in me to do. Whistler has the Windows installed base going for it, while I'd say OS X has maybe a little more eye candy going for it.

The final thing I'd like to comment on is the task based interface paradigm which Microsoft seems to be embracing completely. I haven't thought about it much before now, but off the top of my head, it seems like the "What do you want to do today" interface should be very easy for beginners to comprehend and master. It should make it very clear what there is to do with the computer, which is a big problem I've seen people have. When I was an RCC, I couldn't count how many people asked me "So what do I do with the Internet now that I have it?" The "{What|Where} do you want to {do|go} today" interface paradigm seems to exactly address that issue, and I give props to Microsoft for using it. Now, I want to know where they stole the idea from.

So it looks like OS X versus Whistler is going to be a really fantastic fight to the death, and I don't think Linux has a chance in hell of competing with those two. And that's fine by me, because OS X offers me all the unix I need. It should be clear which side I'm on, even if I'm slightly enticed by the dark side. The battle should be nearly as fierce as the next generation video game console wars that are shaping up for next fall. Between Mac OS X, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Gamecube, Microsoft Whistler, and Microsoft Xbox, along with the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast, the second half of next year is going to be quite a spectacular thing to behold. Let's hope that one company doesn't come out on top of all this mess, because that would be a bad thing. On the bright side, the side I'm rooting for (Nintendo and Apple) should beat Microsoft (Xbox and Whistler) to market, giving them a headstart.

IGNDC has this nice little essay explaining why the Playstation 2 won't destroy the Dreamcast this October. However, it does fail to mention the backwards compatability of the PS2, which is always a wildcard worth remembering. I still won't be buying a PS2 until there's an app that I need (FFX), frankly. And I agree that Sony rushed. Enjoy the read.

And besides, it's $300 out of the gates. Admittedly, there is a DVD player in three too, but I've already got one, and Nintendo and Sega both hit the $200 price mark on launch. So it goes.

Check out the VAIO Music Clip over here from Sony. It's a nice size, but it doesn't hold enough music. I'm still leaning towards an MD player instead of an mp3 player. This 5GB holding mp3 player looks pretty nice, but it's got the name Compaq associated with it, so I'm not going to touch it. It's a tad expensive, too.

Over here we have an article from Newsweek which talks about the impending PS2 release (in Japan at least). It's a pretty good article for the masses, but skims over other things that I'm interested in. Damn I want one of those sleek black puppies.