Windows 8 Minesweeper will have achievements . . .

Started by Syt, August 07, 2012, 11:58:42 AM

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Syt

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/07/the-end-times-achievements-for-minesweeper/

QuoteUntil today, I've been of the opinion that anyone proclaiming the Mayan apocalypse will strike in 2012 was a half-witted knobhead, but now I too have the incontrovertible proof of impending doom for all humanity.

Windows 8 is odious for many reasons – specifically because it's an inept mangling-together of three different interfaces, a disturbing attempt to turn the PC into a walled garden and it stealths a shopping channel into the heart of the OS – but hearing that PC game stalwarts Minesweeper, Solitaire and Majong will be re-released and infected with Achievements as part of it drove to me true despair. All hope is lost. The Earth will burn.

'Xbox Windows' is a title Microsoft's hoping we'll see a lot more of, as it tries to mash its two most famous brands into one in the hoping of direct-selling games on Windows 8 PCs and tablets. Under this new banner come Win, Minesweeper becomes the Metro-styled Microsoft Minesweeper and offers Achievements and Gamerscore points for such highly tactical endeavours as losing the game. Solitaire and Majong (that latter admittedly not much of a PC staple) will similar treatment, report the strange scientists on Xbox360Achievements.org.

It is the modern age. Such things are unavoidable. I am simply a grumpy old man, I realise this. But I do agree with the prevailing industry fear that Windows 8 is an attempt to restrict the freedom of the PC, and stuff like this only cements my ill-feeling about Microsoft's upcoming OS refresh.


I'm in strong agreement.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Grey Fox

Colonel Caliga is Awesome.

sbr

Or people with desktops (especially gamers) could just skip this impending abortion of an OS and wait for a new true desktop OS to come out.


Viking

I obsessively have to get all the records on minesweeper on any computer I use.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Grey Fox

Vista?

It's ME the sequel or Windows 98 first edition disaster.
Colonel Caliga is Awesome.

garbon

Quote from: sbr on August 07, 2012, 12:12:19 PM
Or people with desktops (especially gamers) could just skip this impending abortion of an OS and wait for a new true desktop OS to come out.

:yes:

I guess they are continuing the pattern:
Windows 98 (up)
Windows ME (down)
Windows XP (up)
Windows Vista (down)
Windows 7 (up)
Windows 8 (down)

What isn't good though is how many businesses still were using XP during the Vista and 7 era.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Viking

Quote from: garbon on August 07, 2012, 12:27:01 PM
Quote from: sbr on August 07, 2012, 12:12:19 PM
Or people with desktops (especially gamers) could just skip this impending abortion of an OS and wait for a new true desktop OS to come out.

:yes:

I guess they are continuing the pattern:
Windows 98 (up)
Windows ME (down)
Windows XP (up)
Windows Vista (down)
Windows 7 (up)
Windows 8 (down)

What isn't good though is how many businesses still were using XP during the Vista and 7 era.

I wish I had XP now. There is too much junk on the post XP-SP2 versions of widows. I haven't had a single hard disk survive a post XP version of windows for long. I've hooked up the present one and the graphics card with external cooling.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

szmik

Quote from: garbon on August 07, 2012, 12:27:01 PM
What isn't good though is how many businesses still were using XP during the Vista and 7 era.

Why would they want to change?  :huh:

It's good as long as you don't use Win7 or 64bit specific apps.
Quote from: Neil on September 23, 2011, 08:41:24 AM
That's why Martinus, for all his spending on the trappings of wealth and taste, will never really have class.  He's just trying too hard to be something he isn't (an intelligent, tasteful gentleman), trying desperately to hide what he is (Polish trash with money and a severe behavioral disorder), and it shows in everything he says and does.  He's not our equal, not by a mile.

garbon

Quote from: szmik on August 07, 2012, 02:07:04 PM
Quote from: garbon on August 07, 2012, 12:27:01 PM
What isn't good though is how many businesses still were using XP during the Vista and 7 era.

Why would they want to change?  :huh:

It's good as long as you don't use Win7 or 64bit specific apps.


I was thinking for Microsoft. They keep putting out version that no one seems to want as they either are sticking with an older version or fleeing to OS.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Josquius

Windows 8 is apparently so much worse than vista. The way they've totally changed the interface in a horrible, new direction....hmm.....
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Solmyr


Syt

Gabe Newell from Valve chimes in:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/25/valves-gabe-newell-talks/

Quote[...]

Valve wouldn't exist if it weren't for the PC. Id Software, Epic, Zynga, Facebook, and Google wouldn't have existed without the openness of the platform. I think there's a strong temptation to close the platform. If people look at what they can accomplish when they can limit competitors' access to their platform, they say, "Wow, that's really exciting." Even some of the people who have open platforms, like Microsoft, get really excited by the idea that Netflix has to pay them rent in order to be on the Internet.

That's not how we got here, and I don't think that's a very attractive future. So we're looking at the platform, and up until now we've been a free rider. We've been able to benefit from everything that's gone into the PC and the Internet. Now we have to start finding ways that we can continue to make sure there are open platforms. So that involves a couple of different things.

One, we're trying to make sure that Linux thrives. Our perception is that one of the big problems holding Linux back is the absence of games. I think that a lot of people — in their thinking about platforms — don't realize how critical games are as a consumer driver of purchases and usage. So we're going to continue working with the Linux distribution guys, shipping Steam, shipping our games, and making it as easy as possible for anybody who's engaged with us — putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux, as well. It's a hedging strategy.

I think that Windows 8 is kind of a catastrophe for everybody in the PC space. I think that we're going to lose some of the top-tier PC [original equipment manufacturers]. They'll exit the market. I think margins are going to be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that's true, it's going to be a good idea to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality. But when you start thinking about a platform, you have to address it. You have to address mobile. You have to look at what's going to happen post-tablet. If you look at the mouse and keyboard, it was stable for about 25 years. I think touch will be stable for about 10 years. I think post-touch, and we'll be stable for a really long time — for another 25 years.

[...]

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Razgovory

Quote from: Solmyr on August 08, 2012, 01:16:01 AM
I'm quite happy with my Win 7.

I am as well.  I can upgrade to Windows 8 if I want for small fee, but I don't think I will.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017