Dark Jaguar

My PC is my DVR, and it's worked fine. As for owning tapes, by the time I actually got to the point where I could regularly buy movies, DVD had already taken over. I also never recieved them as gifts, because I never asked for videos but rather video games.

At any rate, he's fine with things as they are and doesn't want to bother getting a controller. Those are perfectly acceptable excuses for not buying what is basically just an entertainment device.

That said, I'm very happy with my 360 controller. My old sidewinder is great too (6 button format is nice, but it's not like I play Genesis or Saturn games on my PC, so that's really no big deal, and I'm one of those who actually doesn't mind the 4 shoulder button format) but unfortunatly as I didn't get a USB format sidewinder, I can't use it on my current computer as it lacks any old "game ports". Oh well.

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"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

A Black Falcon

Yeah, I don't have a USB joystick so I either have to buy one or put an old soundcard that is PCI and has a gameport into my new computer (and then enable it; by default Vista disables gameports) or buy a new joystick, and since the one I have works just fine (my good old Sidewinder 3D Pro which I got in August 1997 and still works perfectly ) I don't really want to do that... not many games use joysticks anymore, so it'd only really be useful if I wanted to play space old flight sims (Wing Commander, TIE Fighter, Freespace, etc) or mech games (MechWarrior 2), but still... I'd like to have one.

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My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

Dark Jaguar

I have an old "wingman" joystick, with a grand two buttons and a "throttle" control, and that's it. Did fine for me back when I was playing Wing Commander 4 and a few other games. My 360 controller works well there, but there's something to be said for the cockpit "feel" I suppose. Ironically enough, the cockpit feel in the real world may soon be getting updated to use something resembling a video game controller. "Gesturing" is another possibility, but what terrifies me there is figuring an easy way to immediatly turn off the motion sensing so you don't sneeze and send your plane into a nose dive.

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"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

A Black Falcon

The MS Sidewinder 3d Pro has four buttons on the handle, four on the base, a throttle, and a twist (rudder) axis as well. However, its drivers do not work on anything beyond Win98 or so, so you have to use it instead in two other modes it supports: analog Thrustmaster FCS or ... um, some other stick emulation. In one mode you get four buttons (on the stick) and the throttle, but not the rudder or other four buttons, but can only have one button pressed at a time (kind of annoying); in the other mode there are just four buttons, no rudder or throttle or anything, but you can press multiple buttons at once. I use the former mode. I don't miss the base buttons at all... after all, your other hand is going to be on the keyboard anyway, not the base of the joystick. Even when they worked I almost never used them. Now the twist axis, that I miss... oh well.

We had an ancient 2-button (with throttle) Kraft Thunderstick before that one, that came packed in with our P90 (because the system came with Rebel Assualt, presumably), but that thing was awful... analog, so you had to constantly adjust the trim pots, and only two buttons...

Anyway, I'd never want to play a space sim (or realistic mech game) with a gamepad. It's harder, a LOT less fun, and shreds a lot of the illusion of immersion... outside of civilian flight sims, a genre I don't enjoy, there aren't really any games anymore that actually use joysticks, so I haven't missed not having one, but even so it's something I'll eventually have to deal with. After all, I never did finish ... well, um... MechWarrior 2, TIE Fighter, X-Wing, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, or X-Wing Alliance... or Wing Commander... to name all of my PC space sims/mech games... (though technically I did finish the base TIE Fighter; I played the CD version which includes the original floppy missions plus the missions from both addons and got through all the missions from the original game and first expansion before bogging down near the end of the second (and last) expansion... but other than that...)

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My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

Dark Jaguar

Kraft? As in... cheese?

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"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

A Black Falcon

I have no idea but doubt it.

Some computer products company with that same name, I imagine.

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My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

Dark Jaguar

Indeed, but why would they willingly pick that name?

__________________
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

Dark Jaguar

Anyway, they should really add a lot to this game. Like, FMVs, action figures, a cloth map! Wait...

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"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

A Black Falcon

Kraft is a last name. Name your company after yourself.

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

A Black Falcon

Whew... took a while but I finally managed a better score (above about 150,000). Got 289,520... though compared to the millions good players get I've got a long way to go.

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My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

EdenMaster

I've not played in a little while, but I believe I got somewhere in the vicinity of 270,000.

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The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

A Black Falcon

New high score: 398,390 ... I'm still not very good.

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

A Black Falcon

438,495

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My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

EdenMaster

Nice.

I haven't played recently. Been too caught up in other games. Also, the music is glitched. It's choppy, like a half second playes, the next half second is removed, and the next half second plays. It makes the music very distracting and, since that is one of my favorite parts of the game, has dissuaded me from playing.

And Geometry Wars in silence? Go back to Russia.

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The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

A Black Falcon

Huh, the music is fine for me (on PC)... I do have some issues with the game, though. They really, REALLY should have made it a single-screen game. Robotron 2084, Smash TV, Llamatron 2112... they all were single-screen-per-area games. Geometry Wars scrolls a bit, so part of the area is offscreen. Would it really have been so hard to fit it into one screen? It's not that much larger than a screen...

I also have issues with the controls. You can't remap the 'activate in menus' button, which is quite annoying because of the layout of the Saitek p880 -- "1" is the top-right button of the upper row. I want it on the first row right button, "3"... and this isn't the game's fault, but aiming with the p880's right stick isn't great sometimes thanks probably to the square-well stick of the gamepad. The fact that you have to press the stick to fire is also a bit annoying. They should have taken the Llamatron style and had autofire, so when you're not pressing a fire direction you automatically shoot forward (that would help this game SO MUCH... I really loved that feature in Llamatron. All dual-stick shooters should do the same...), but they didn't...

Anyway, I guess that while I think it's an awesome game, I feel like I should be able to do better at it... people get way better scores than this in the game. Oh well, I'm not THAT bad. The secret (going by videos of people with high scores) seems to be going in large circles all the time, but that's easier said than done...

That is, it's hard and frustrating.

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My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff