NGF Mailbag - Edition #5
Feb. 1^st, 2001

Go here and never darken our doorstep again with questions that should be directed to www.gameshark.com

Now serving #2!

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While I do appreciate the many platitudes and obsequious phrasing, once again, I am going to direct you to the amazing work being done over at www.gamefaqs.com Their entire purpose for existing is to provide persons like yourself with the information you so desire...so would you people STOP ASKING ME THESE QUESTIONS!?!? I have a very large friend across the river in Brooklyn who does very painful things to people for very little money, and he owes me some favors.

Next!

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I can’t believe I’m answering this, but if you’re talking about the PC game that’s nearly four years old, you just type them in at any point during the game.

All right. First of all, I don’t think ‘bittage’ is really a word, but it works and I like it. As for this 64/128/256 whatever bull***t, let me make something clear to a lot of people...the ‘bittage’ (see, I used it!) is no longer the specification to argue about. Sure, that worked in the 8/16/32 bit days, but there are far too many facets of hardware design anymore for that to be an accurate yardstick. Bits refer to either the number of bits or binary digits that could be processed or transmitted in parallel (this vagary of definition was the manner in which Atari attempted to dupe the public by claiming that their Jaguar was 64 bits. It simply had a 64 bit bus.) or it can mean the number of bits used for a single piece of data. From here it starts to get a bit wacky, as we enter into the bus width, which is counted in bits. The wider the bus, the more information that can be accessed, since a 64-bit bus can access information in unique addresses of up to 64 lines, the sheer amount of data this allows to be stored and transferred is staggering. But even this phenomenal number is limited by the speed at which the information transfers, which is the mhz. This means that a 32-bit cpu at 33 mhz will be much slower than one at 66 mhz, which would be a noticeable difference if it were taken advantage of.

Now that you have a bit of a basis here, let me assure you that the specs of the Gamecube are quite impressive, and they outshine the PS2 without doubt.

Either way though, this is meaningless mud-slinging since, as always, it’s the games that count. I have some awesome brand-new games for my Dreamcast waiting for me to jump in, but I’m most looking forward to playing Vagrant Story for the PSX and trying my new copy of Zelda: A Link to the Past out on the SNES.

Oh man. I really don’t know the specifics on this. I do know that it should be broken down into a number of factors, from which you can estimate certain quantities. These costs include:

2) Equipment- Considering the total usage of equipment, I have been told (by a former president of Konami, so I believe him) that $8000 per employee is a safe range.

3) Employees- It will usually require at least 15 people (programmers, artists, sound, designers) just working on the actual game, none of whom would want to work those hours for less than $40,000 a year, and a secretary/assistant or three, PR personnel and of course a few people that take care of the business side of things like drumming up a publisher and extra cash. Consider then that the project will take at least 18 months, and probably over two years and that these people will need to be paid.

4) Licensing- You may need to license an engine to get things running, which is an expense up front.

Hope that helps.

As for manufacturing and distribution, you should probably call a publisher like Eidos or EA, since they often handle both, and speak English as a first language.

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Okay...first of all, I’m not going to get drawn into a debate about the power of one system over another. Particularly when we haven’t seen either one in motion. Secondly, there are many details about each system that fanboys of one camp will use to flame fanboys of the other, and I have no interest in making the mailbag a forum for those imbeciles.

I have no doubts that Nintendo will release multiple colors of the Gamecube, though it might not happen at release.

As for the site...we have no control over that. Allow me to make something clear about the internet for you. ‘We’ aren’t this website. This website is just a series of documents that are being stored on a computer. Though I don’t know the actual specifics about our particular situation, it’s generally a safe assumption that the website is simply renting space on someone else’s server, which allows for countless people to access it. Lastly, get a faster connection. Besides, you use AOL, so the last thing you should be doing is complaining to us about service.

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I think you hang out with the geniuses who keep asking me to provide them with detailed walk-throughs for every game on the planet. Hell, someone asks me about Scooby-Doo this time, for cryin’ out loud.

Someone already made this game Tex. Apparently it’s geared for younger gamers...I can’t imagine why.

And how many versions of Tony Hawk do we really need? Will I be getting mail about wheelchair games with the Tony Hawk engine? Perhaps professional dog-walkers? Or snow sledding?

I’d like to point out that this guy’s handle is ‘Chimpdude’...which goes a long way towards explaining this submission. Obviously a distant relative of Bilingual Literate Monkey.

Next!

Jared adds: THQ already owns the Razor license, and they've got plans for scooter games on multiple platforms.  Adrian's right...how many of these games do we really need?

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No, they have not.

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The only thing I was able to locate that seemed to fit your profile was an online game from a company called Simutronics. They were a subscription game company (for a monthly charge of around $10 you were able to play their games on their servers) that had a lot of trouble, and I haven’t heard anything about them since 1998. They were slated to develop Hercules/Xena online game, but I don’t think it ever panned out.

The other possibility is that you heard about The Sims, which is so outrageously customizable that it’s doubtful there aren’t at least a hundred versions of Xena floating around for download.

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Yes, there is a more recent addition to this series. Called Earthworm Jim 3D, it is available on the Nintendo 64, but oh man, is it bad. If you want to give him a taste of the nostalgia, I suggest you try one of the following:

2) Buy a Genesis 3 (third generation Sega Genesis system that sells for $20 in most stores) and pick up copies of the original games, which can be found many times brand new at Toys ‘r’ Us or at a Funcoland.

3) Try Ebay.

Otherwise, I guess you could try the 3D title, but the camera is so incredibly awkward it destroys much of the enjoyment.

Best of luck.

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Look to the answer below. And yes, this is the most moronic solution to a puzzle since Zork screwed up an entire generation of gamers.

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You have to jump and grab the hanging hook/chain with the yellow and black stripes. This will kick you into a cut-scene. Don’t feel bad, unless you had seen the movie, it takes a while to figure out. My girlfriend had to tell me.

And you just barely escaped being filed under the new mailbag section, so be grateful we have similar tastes in games.

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