Your stuff in text, answered by me, in words of hefty weight and import (not).
Doug, are you the founder of IGN as we know it today? I read a piece on your site and it mentioned you as the one who started N64.com and then spun into IGN from there.
I'm considered "a" founder. Not the founder. I was the first editor to start working an IGN site, the first to launch an IGN site (N64.com), and the most senior of all IGN editors, having been at IGN since August 1996. When I started there was a staff of seven people, including myself (Editor, N64.com), Adam Douglas (Editor, PSXPower.com), Jeff Chen (Editor, saturnworld.com), Eric Marcoullier (Webmaster), Eugene Wang (artist), Jonathan Simpson-Bint (publisher), and Chris Charla (Editor-in-chief of all sites).
--Douglass
Sammy Vs. Capcom
Dude-ski Doug, wuddup.
Those yahoos over at ps2 wont give me the time of day, seeing as how they are to busy wasting space, belittling bumbling idiots to enhance their egos rather than answer legitimate questions. But any who, a little birdie dropped some knowledge on me about some Sammy vs Capcom action. I want to know how true this is, if true will the game be made by Arc Systems with permission to use Capcom fighters, or vice versa? How bad ass would it be to see those street fighter cats busting out insta kills? So if you want to be a dear and find out how the game will play that would be greatly appreciated. Will it be the Capcom style of yesteryear or will it be busting out of the gates with that Sammy swagger? Welp...that's my mama.
Take'er easy, she's my lady and that's what I say......hay that was pretty good. KP
P.S. I'm not looking to get famous in the mailbag bro, I just wanna know. So a reply with any info would be peachy. Even if it's the ol ain't gonna happen schpeel. Peace
Sadly, the last and only information we have on the game is this. I'm sure it's somewhere in the limbo of development, and maybe it's been delayed so it will appear as a next-gen game.
--Douglass
Xbox 2 Weakness
I'm no fan boy and just like this generation I'll probably be purchasing all of the systems in the next generation. But a few comments from writers in the latest edition of the "#1 Videogame Magazine" that showed up on my door step bothered me. In two sections of the mag the writers claimed that developers had told them that PS3 is "orders of magnitude" more powerful than Xbox 2 that it is "way, way more powerful than Xbox 2" and "insanely powerful." Is this Sony touting specs that have nothing to do with real world performance again? The odds of two similarly timed releases by Nvidia and ATI being that different in horsepower is slim, right? Unless you have heard otherwise I'm going to have to chalk it up to more Cell hype. The Cell looks great but it's the CPU, not the GPU, and I just don't see it having the overwhelming impact.
The plain fact is this, it's too early to tell. That's their projected guess, informed or not. Microsoft is unofficially telling developers that three IBM-designed 64-bit microprocessors (used in Apple Computer's high-end G5 PowerMac machines now) will power its machine, with a graphics chip designed by ATI Technologies (with cruising speeds much faster than its upcoming R400 chip for the PC). As for the PS3, the cell chip is potentially very powerful indeed, with the "potential" of being more powerful than every console ever. But with all of this information, I'd stuff it all away in a little part of your brain and listen and wait. Because, really at this point, it's a war of hype and speculation, and Sony likes to play that game. Just remember how hyped up the PS2 was for the Dreamcast launch, and then look at the first PS2 games. What a disappointment is all we can say. :0 Without actual specs to compare, it's all speculation and wishful thinking right now.
--Douglass
BIA
Hey, i loved reading the review of BIA which i have been looking forward to for a long time. A reason i was thinking why i should buy this game is that i thought the live experience looked. My question is that is it a great xbox live game because it sounded like live wasn't that great on your last page of the reveiw but in the box of lasting appeal, you write multiplayer was a blast. SO can you please just tell me if multip is fun enough to keep playing. Thanks!!
The Xbox Live functionality is very good, indeed, and I'd recommend getting that game, full stop. We were only able to get a quick glimpse of the multiplayer mode, and from what we could determine in over an hour's worth of play, it's very fun. But the single-player campaign created a greater, more impressionable experience, which is why there is more written about it.
--Douglass
HD
I was wodering if the xbox 2 was going to have a hard drive and if it will be able to play old xbox games. it would be very disappointing if it didnt have the hard drive and the ability to play old games. if you have any info please give me send me some info.
That hasn't been announced yet, so we don't know. We do know, however, that Microsoft is carefully considering both options, and will announce its plans at E3.
--Douglass
HDTV Gaming
Hello, just saw the post in the mailbag about HDTV gaming. I would just like to let you know that there are complete lists of HDTV game support for all systems at http://www.hdtvarcade.com It is a great resource for HDTV gaming. Maybe you would like to let your readers know. Interesting info - Did you know that the good old Dreamcast has more 480p games than the Gamecube and PS2?
Cheers.
--Douglass
Co-op
I'm really curious why publishers don't make their FPS's online co-op? I must say that time splitters not being co-op has bummed me, mainly because they said they were going to have it. It's hard to imagine it's technical when you have 16 player deathmatch online as possible. So then is it that they think people don't want it? As a guy who recently moved away to start a new job, I know my friends and I would love to still be able to play through games together. I hope you can shed some light on this. Thanks
The reason more publishers don't do it is two-fold, in my opinion. First, nobody has done a very good job if it, i.e., nobody has figured out how to do it so gamers love it and the design is right. There are issues with where to re-spawn, how to enable players to retain their freedom while keeping them in the general area, reaching end-points, and so forth. We were all hoping Bungie would figure this out in Halo 2, but it declined that option, focusing on multiplayer instead. Id and Vicarious Visions worked online co-op in to DOOM III, but the downside is that if you die, you'll have to start back at the very beginning of the level, while the other guy might be way ahead of you. Thus, you have to run through an empty level to catch up. Second, online co-op requires a lot of programming time that might take away from the development of the rest of the game. So, they figure it's too much work and too much investment for an element that really doesn't add that much value to the game. If you were a publisher, however, and read our mailbag section or the IGN boards, for instance, you would think that online co-op is the greatest thing ever. So...I think online co-op is being worked on, and in the next year, it will be in more and more games. Just keep bitchin about it, and online co-op will happen!
--Douglass
