Storing Saves?

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Storing Saves?

Postby Thoul » Mon Jan 28, '08, 7:00 pm

I'm sure we've all played plenty of games that have the ability to save progress. There are lots of different ways that can work. There's passwords and cart based battery powered saves, common among the classic games. Some systems, like PlayStation, have special memory cards that are unique to the system. Other systems, mainly those in the current generation, have built in hard drives like a computer. The Wii can also use SD cards, which are commonly used by digital cameras to store photos as files.

What approach do you think is the best for storing saves?
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Postby Wolf Bird » Mon Jan 28, '08, 11:05 pm

I like the memory card approach. It's quite convenient to have all your data on just this tiny little thing that's easy to carry around with you, so that if you go to a friend's house who has your system and your games, all you need is the memory card. You don't need to bring ALL your equipment. Plus, the memory cards make it easy to back your data up in case of corruption.
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Postby SparkyIII » Mon Jan 28, '08, 11:19 pm

I do like the memory cards, cuz you can have all these different colors for them, and styles, and looks and size, and space.
I totally get the back up thing. Except when we copied them they were already corrupted. So some of them all of a sudden started working again. Suspicious...
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Postby DrkTr14ce » Tue Jan 29, '08, 5:11 am

((o.o Did the defualt text change, Thoul?))

Honestly, I say it depends on the game at hand. With arcade games, you have to go with passwords. Because otherwise it sort of kills the fun and frustration involved with getting to that point in the game. And with Hard Drive saving (360, PS3), I only tend to like it if it's only my system.
(Long story short, there's a public place near here that has Xboxes. Unfortounately, since it's public, files get overwritten and deleted often, ensuing irritation among the more frequent goers. :bang: )

But overall, I'll just say 'the heck with it' and go with Memory Cards. My PS2 ones have held up well over the years, and the only problem I've had with them is one more recent, and it's that I've filled up both of them.

Sony should've came out with a larger size.
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Postby Thoul » Tue Jan 29, '08, 7:57 pm

DrkTr14ce wrote:((o.o Did the defualt text change, Thoul?))


No, I added a new feature that lets members pick their own default text for their posts. You can read more about it here:
http://www.psalgo.com/bb/more-control-p ... t1228.html

(Long story short, there's a public place near here that has Xboxes. Unfortounately, since it's public, files get overwritten and deleted often, ensuing irritation among the more frequent goers. :bang: )


Hm, yes, I can see how that would be bad. It reminds of rentals, when I'd rent a game, miss it the next week, then get it again and my saves were gone. Very frustrating.

I like memory cards the most as well, but I also wish they would hold a little more. I've got several Playstation and PS2 cards because I filled them up. I'm going to have to get a new Gamecube card pretty soon, too. I kind of like the Wii's version of it, the SD card. I can just plug that into a slot on my PC and transfer saves to that. I should even be able to store them on CD or DVD backups, which is pretty cool to me.
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Postby Reno » Tue Jan 29, '08, 9:26 pm

I'd have to say the best approach is built in hard drives coupled with SD or USB slots to back up data. However, I hate Nintendo's approach with the SD cards and how you had to buy their cards that they put out, otherwise the Wii couldn't read it. That said, console gaming will always be inferior to computers. Computers are much more diverse and less specialised, not only that, but with a little knowledge you can go into a game's coding and actually edit things in and out, making for a much more involved and in-depth experience in gaming. Also, if you look at the current generation of consoles, (more specifically PS3 and 360) those systems are becoming more like PC's and less like the cartridge-based consoles of old.

Really, when my laptop can run nearly all of the old games, (sorry SEGA, we already paid for those games 20 years ago...) and I have the means to easily reproduce any data, (no lost or corrupted memory cards!) then the only reason I have for moving to the next console generation is to play the newly released games, (which I'd never try on the PC due to moral issues) but as time goes on, the line between console and PC will be completely broken and everyone will be playing the latest and greatest games on their PSPC's, (PlayStationPersonalComputer) :wink:
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Postby Celeith » Fri Feb 8, '08, 9:24 pm

The only system that I didn't like for save storage was the Sega Saturn. Sure saving to your harddrive is alright but mine would never keep the saves a few minutes after saving. After so many years I finally decided to buy me a memory card for it.
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