Generations 1985 - 2001 Part 2

Welcome back. Yesterday, I saw my rankings sky rocketed. I was number 6 for the first few hours of July 29th. That day I posted some reading material I felt good for this blog from my personal webpage. I started to post all my reviews since I’m into games, and I use to write reviews. I didn’t write very long reviews, just short ones, while I like IGN.com’s reviews, I don’t see myself writing 3 pages of paragraphs. I took the basic concepts of writing reviews including the game’s story, the graphics, game play, the sound effects / soundtrack, and conclusion. In the reviews, when the reviewer talks about lighting and shadow use - I understand that. What I don’t understand too well is how some people review game play. Game play is more one’s opinion, and can range 10 points (based on 100 point review system) in a videogame review. I have this habit of remembering IGN.com’s review so I take content from their review, and put it on my own. This is bad. 3D games have been out long enough where games have a standard in 3D game play. All I look at is graphics and game play, I don’t care about anything else unless it’s something stupid like Rugrats, Superman or Drake of the 99 Dragons.

This article is the 2nd half of videogame machines dating from 2000 – 2004. Okay, where to start?….hmm...Playst ation 2 is known to everyone as a 128-bit machine, and therefore high resolution, right? There is a misconception that Playstation 2 is 4 times as powerful as PSone. I believe that this is a big understatement. The Playstation’s CPU was clocked at 33 MHz while the PS2’s main CPU (out of four) is clocked at 300 MHz. It’s more like 9 times more powerful. PS2 is based on RISC technology which means the CPU is powerful enough to handle everything including graphics, AI movements, FMV, anything that needs processing except for sound. The sound chip is apart of the motherboard, but this always has been true. Twelve years ago, Sega CD had a motherboard with a 16-bit sound chip. Back then it was pretty nifty stuff I guess. The complex part is where PS2 has two other co-processors that are both clocked at about 135 MHz to do some interesting techniques that one CPU can not do. It’s basically taking the data load off the main CPU so it can concentrate at giving the graphics processing unit better graphics data by using shared RAM. It really doesn’t seem that way since Gamecube can pretty much make ports of PS2 games look a lot better. The first PS2 games such as Ridge Racer V, Heroes of Might and Magic, Tekken Tag Tournament only used the main processor. The Playstation 2 also has an outdated 32-bit GPU clocked at 150 MHz. This is a little more powerful than my Nvidia TNT 2 I’ve had installed in my Compaq in 2001 (before I upgraded to a 64-bit Radeon). It looked good on TV for some state-of-the-art anti-analyzing, and several mip-mapping techniques the console had. My television is the analog kind from six years back, so polygons looks smoothed out on it. We had a flat screen television in the family room downstairs, and Playstation graphics are more vivid and high resolution on it. The stuff that Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater is showing is pretty damn amazing for Playstation 2. I have one and sometimes I wonder how graphics are produced on it. The difference of graphic quality of Ridge Racer V and Gran Turismo 4 is huge. Not to mention Madden 2004, and ESPN Football 2K5 look better than any other football title.

Games I knew that are big on it were Jak and Dexter, Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X and XI, Gran Turismo 3, Grand Thief Auto 3 and/or Vice City, Deer Hunter, and Need for Speed Underground.

Some interesting news today on Google. Sony Computer Entertainment plans to spend 2.5 Billion dollars on a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant somewhere in Taiwan to manufacture millions of Playstation 3s, and probably Playstation 4s as well. This doesn’t include costs on how much Sony invested to IBM to create the ‘Cell’ microchip. In 1999, Nintendo invested 1 billion dollars into IBM to develop the ‘Gecko’ processor. I don’t know whether or not this including manufacturing costs which would be replenished as soon as Nintendo sold their Gamecube software. The prototype “Cell” microprocessor series is going to be produced in 2005 at the Nagasaki plant. This is done so software can be made 5 months before so Sony can show the tech demo at E3 (Electronics Entertainment Expo Trade Show) 2005. This plant will also manufacture IBM servers. I’m okay with it as long as it makes Playstation 3 cheaper. It’s already going to make new Playstation 2’s cheaper as well, by redesigning a more efficient way to do games that 5 year old technology has done. A recent message board rumor confirms that Sony plans to unleash the PStwo in 2005 or 2006. PStwo is a miniature Playstation 2 model that looks a lot better than the current one, and cheaper to own as well when it’s announced. PStwo may even be as inexpensive as Gamecube right now. Sony would love to compete at the same price as Nintendo right now. There are websites such as http://PSinsider.com which will tell you the exact details when really we already know PS3 is going to look cinematic, and be very, very expensive at it’s launch date. No matter what, Playstation 3 will have the best hardware of next generation. Just think the Xbox versions of Half-life 2, and Doom 3 at a higher resolution. Need I say more? Of course, there’s this question I have about RPGs running on the most advance console hardware? It won’t be answered until the first RPG comes out for PS3. This traditionally has never been the case. Think Playstation and N64. I think it’s fun to buy all three next generation consoles, and than say you have no comment on which console is better. I’ve done this.

There is some news on the Internet about how the Playstation 2 can be instantly transformed into a Playstation 3 by adding a box like add-on to the largest expansion slot of the PS2. It’s a good idea, but the Playstation 3 has a much more advance motherboard, not to mention more RAM. The motherboard couldn’t possibly fit into the expansion slot. There is an exception though, the PSP is said to future processing power almost as powerful as the Playstation 2 while the Nintendo DS will be slightly more powerful than Nintendo 64. I don’t see how this could be possible in 2005 to make a motherboard that small? You’re talking about a console that out performs most PCs sold in 2004 in games. Making technology that small would be really expensive. I mean just look at my desktop computer…that thing is a monster of a tower, and the motherboard is about 2/3 of the total size of my tower. It’s just another unrealistic post from an imaginative gamer – some posters them noobies. He better forget about the blu-ray drive, and new sound chip. Consoles will never again have performance boosters like the questionable 4-MB expansion pack on N64 or the failed Sega CD add-on for Sega Genesis.

As for the Microsoft Xbox, we know it as the first American videogame console since Atari 7800 (100% genuine US). Except the Xbox controller is made in Malaysia, and the Xbox console is manufactured in near by Mexico. I know this because I looked on the bottom of my Xbox. We know the Japanese hate it. They despise it. Let’s face it, Japanese will always love RPGs, and RPGs aren’t on Xbox. Anyhow, machines do all the work in a high tech assembly line. Does Microsoft own their own facility or do they license it out to another company? After that they loose 100 dollars on every Xbox. I think I said this before somewhere?

The best thing about Xbox is Conker will be on it. Well, maybe not the best thing. There were gamers still out there who think Halo is the best thing on Xbox right now. It was true that Halo was pulling the weight of the whole Xbox. Want Halo? Get Xbox. Don’t want Halo? Don’t get Xbox. That analogy was true for 12 months after it was released. Unless, of course, you felt you needed to play Madden Football 2002 or Project Gotham on it. The only RPG I was okay with on Xbox was Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. The game looked a lot better on my PC than Xbox though. Still, it was the entire game. Then I saw Morrowind Game of the Year for 20 bucks. It was a steal so I bought it, and got rid of the original Morrowind game. Morrowind had a horrible draw rate on Xbox. . To be more specific, it didn’t have a look at the whole scenery from affair which the PC version had. The game occasionally froze. Elder Scrolls 3 - Morrowind Game of the Year freezes up less often thanks to some additional crash bug-fixes. I hear the Xbox had a problem of loading all the content off DVD so Bethesda Softworks had to cut down on draw rate. I know because I was in Elder Scrolls 3 from November to December. It still looks very good. The blocky people in the game can be overlooked. I can over look the Xbox version of Doom 3 because of the controller controls. iD Software confirmed that Doom 3 can barely work on the Xbox. That’s pretty amazing since iD Software claims it has the world’s most advanced 3D engine. I mean I don’t care it’s on Xbox, but I rather have it on PC.

Microsoft is known for their two games with Xbox package. The most famous I can think of is the limited edition Sega Jet Grind Radio / Sega GT 2002 combo DVD. This is why I think so. Sega and Microsoft did a partnership in 1997 when Dreamcast was in prototype stages. Now that Sega is an ex-console manufacture, Microsoft did them a favor by showing off Sega games on their console. . This would be normal except Sega never developed another game for another console since the Atari 2600 days. Okay, there was Bandai Wonderswan and Tiger Game.com, but those were handhelds until 2001 when Sega went multi-platform. It was probably strictly business, but I liked their 2 game package with a Sega GT 2002/Jet Grind Radio on one DVD (both sequels of Dreamcast games) made by Smilebit and WOW. All you need to know about Smilebit is that it is the only one of three developers that ports exclusive Sega games to Xbox. Formally, Smilebit was known as 2nd party developers, but now that Sega Enterprises Ltd is a 3rd party, they can’t be called that. The other is WOW Entertainment (SEGA GT 2002 and SEGA GT Online). Sega is different because their big enough to have all the Dreamcast developer studios still working for them. Atari works differently now since all the developers choose them as their publisher, and are not considered a 2nd party of Atari anymore. Atari was bought by Infrogames, and then Infrogames changed their name back to Atari, which was a smart move on their part in my opinion. Who heard of Infrogames anyways? So in a way, development studios bought out by Infrogames before 2002 are now owned by the new Atari. If that makes any sense to you guys? That’s the main reason why Sega absorbed AM2, and Sonic Team back into themselves last month. Having Sonic Team without a 2nd party status, the developer was able to be bought out by bigger software development studios.

I got information off a Playstation 3 forum stating that Nintendo announced the first ever 1 Gigabyte game cartridges for Nintendo DS. This is pretty amazing since the biggest N64 game cart is 512 MB, and Resident Evil 2 was the only game to use it. Here are some examples of N64 cart sizes.

• Super Mario 64 – 8 MB cartridge
• Pilot Wings – 8 MB cartridge
• Tetris 64 – 8 MB cartridge
• Mario Kart 64 – 16 MB cartridge
• Goldeneye 007 – 16 MB cartridge
• Banjo and Kajooie 32 MB cartridge
• Ridge Racer 64 – 64 MB cartridge
• Perfect Dark - 256 MB cartridge
• Conker’s Bad Fur Day – 386 MB cartridge
• Resident Evil 2 – 512 MB cartridge

After I said all this information, I like to let everyone know, buy what makes you happy. I know graphics aren’t everything. I’m not wasting valuable time wondering what new consoles will be like. However, I do like to look at what the console’s specs are. I spoke of the confirmed Xenon spec Internet-leakage in January. And it’s brand new content. I have enough games where I can play one game for 4 days, and move onto another game for 4 months without playing the same game twice. I’m not going to do this because it makes no sense.

Got it all figured out:

1. Firstly, Revolution since there has the be one quality launch title.
2. Secondly, Playstation 3 since it’s bound to have Gran Turismo 5, and RPGs such as Xenosaga Episode 3, Final Fantasy XIII, XIV, XV, Grandia 4, Suikoden V, Breath of Fire VI, and Star Ocean IV.
3. Then if Xenon is any good I’ll buy it. My guess is it’ll look very close to what Nintendo and Sony consoles.

For those who wonder if they should wait and save up for a new generation console with money left over for games - I going with Playstation 3 is the wisest decision. Even the Xenon should look a lot better than Xbox. But that’s what people said with Dreamcast and Playstation 2 back in 1999. I remember it so well. Dreamcast is going to be outsold by PS2. It ended up with Dreamcast having better quality games than PS2, including games like Soul Caliber, and Sonic Adventure 2 that looked better than let’s say ‘Tekken Tag Tournament’ and ‘Ridge Racer V’.

Today, I’ve been downloading roms including Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Paper Mario, and F-Zero X. CBFD is still downloading through my modem. I called my friend, Bob, earlier today, but I got no answer. I didn’t do anything this week except play Gamecube and X-box, and there is only 2 weeks until school starts again. I thought about downloading some large files off the T1 server at school since they would let me during the summer (WITC is vacant during summer but the library is open). What sucks is I can’t find my UT2004 play disc! I have to find a no-cd crack that works with the game now. I could download stuff at school, but pear to pear networks don’t download well although there was that time I successfully downloaded Doom 3 CD 1 off Overnet at school over one weekend. It was unfortunate that Doom 3 was corrupted. It’s coming out on Thursday anyhow. SWEET!

I downloaded Bittorrent today, http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent. I thought it would be an application like Limewire, but instead it incorporates itself into the web browser. That’s still impressive. I already know why it’s out although it basically does what Emule does. Emule allows users to put in an IP address of anyone on the server and allow the user to connect to them directly. There is no privacy on Emule though which makes users afraid of this type of Internet. I wanted a Jaguar BIOS so I could run Atari Karts on a Jaguar emulator called Project Tempest. Soon I found out that the Jaguar emulator did not need a BIOS to play most ROMS. That’s always nice to figure out.

Today, I played good old Dreamcast again. Sonic Adventure has a big issue on skipping after 20 minutes of play. My Dreamcast will be 5 years old this September, and I played it a lot for the first 3 years. Resident Evil 2, Code Veronica, and The Next Tetris have this same loading problem. I played Sega Rally Championship 2 and Dead or Alive 2 yesterday. I heard from some gaming sites that the Dreamcast version of Dead or Alive 2 looks better than the Playstation 2 version, and even has more polygons. This made me want to put in Dead or Alive 3 and play that. The Xbox controller isn’t that much different from the Dreamcast controller, and the buttons are exactly the same!