SomTervo

This! Not like Posh Spice in a bad way, though. You look healthy!

Still good for a game If anyone's there

I can't stay up too late, yo

Hey, I'm good to play all tonight if you guys want a game. Add me on kenshi_ryden if so

Drake literally makes that joke in the trailer xD Unless you were referring to that. As nobody's posted it yet, here's the trailer. It's got the best acting I've ever fucking seen in a videogame; and it's only 1:30 of footage or so:

Game looks fucking amazing, though.

Ah yeah, that bit in MGS4 is really harrowing. They managed to make it seem so endless, too. I loved the Darkness, I'm wondering what they're going to do in the sequel. That ending was, indeed, pretty sweet. So unusual for a game to end like that, too. Brillo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_countryRoughly 2 billion people are used to Month Day, either preceded or followed by the year. Roughly 3.5 billion people are used to Day Month, although I'm not sure how accurate that is, as Australia is listed as DMY, and my coworker tells me that's not the case. (That may be due in part to him living in Japan, perhaps, like English, which has the occasional usage of December 7, 1941 ("December the seventh, nineteen forty-one") Australia also has all-numeric dates invariably ordered dd/mm/yyyy...he could be wrong about mm/dd/yyyy, but like I said, he says otherwise. Go, go, Japan and China...those guys have the YMD thing already figured out. Good catch! We should try our hardest to propagate the YMD system.

If we wanted to follow that logic, we should all use YY/MM/DD, just like we use HH:MM:SS. But we're not computers, and English is hardly the most logical or consistent language. (nor are humans the always logical or consistent) YYYYMMDDHHMMSS would be the format that would make the most sense...but MM/DD is how several hundred million English speakers say the date, and it follows that when "February" followed by "14th" are the order they pop into their head, 2/14 is the way they write that data down. Suggesting that people should think in one order and write the numbers in another seems very unintuitive. Writing dates and times in the same order that we're used to saying them isn't something that needs to be changed. A universal format would be nice, even if just for things like expiration dates, and I'd be all for food manufacturers and distributors agreeing on one...but that decision isn't something that should be made because one way is "right" or another way is "wrong". Yeah, that's true, and I agree with it. When we're speaking informally it doesn't matter what order you use- I just mean on anything that should have scientific accuracy, like machines or use-by dates, or dates in general, it should be a logical manner, the most logical being YY/MM/DD, or a variant. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just logical, in an informatics sense. Smallest value to largest vaue, or vice versa, obviously. Also I'm pretty sure multiple billions of people use the DD/MM/YY method, so I think that's pretty standardised and is the most widespread version throughout Humanity. Just like English is the most widespread language, but it's even more widespread than that. A few people have said that on here already, don't hold me to a reference!

But this is all what people say, not what the values are for empirical matters such as referent dates and times. I can say "it's March the 7th, 2011", or, "it's the 7th of March, 2011"- that doesn't matter, it's simply putting the data into a sentence, organising it differently and putting it on display. Sure, that's arbitrary and silly to argue about, because it's just some sentences, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what is displayed in data, on your computer, your watch, etc., for categorizing things. Pure numbers. Which is what you're sending out if you put a date in a XX/YY/ZZ format. Pure numbers- not what you'd say in casual conversation. In that sense, the categories YY, MM, and DD, should go from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest. Not medium, to smallest, to largest, which is what MM/DD/YY is. It's like if you decided to write "1, 2, 3" as "1, 3, 2" for no reason (though that's obviously a pretty ridiculous example.) A friend of mine has an ex-girlfriend who was of Japanese descent, but was from Northern Ireland. Probably the cutest combo of look/accent I've ever seen.

Yeah, SotC made me well up a bit from it's beauty. And yeah, everytime you kill a Colossi, you never really feel good about it. There's a moment of "yes, I overcame a challenge of incredible magnitude", then you just sit for a few moments in silence watching them fall over, helpless. Then the pathos kicks in. The worst thing is when you come back a couple of battles later, and the body of the one who used to live there is all degraded and skeletal. Really amazing game for putting you in a place and time, even if the sense of time is totally impressionistic and intangible. Nobody cry at/near the end of Ico? Made me well up a bit, again, but mostly for The brutal ending of GTAIV where . How about Braid? I didn't cry, but I certainly held my head in my hands from how emotional it was, and how harrowing the ultimate message was. Up was brilliantly, beautifully tragic, as was Toy Story 3. Amazing what Pixar can achieve these days.

Mate, Jesper Kyd did the music for that video. That is fucking sweet. He did all the music for IO Interactive's games- from Hitman through to Freedom Fighters. Also did the Assassin's Creed series, more recently. Amazing guy, this is a total old school gem.

@StaySICK, you look very much like a good childhood friend of mine. But infinitely more badass. Well done, old boy *applause*. He's got the same shape of face, glasses, hair, and very similar facial hair, but none of the style you got. @LittlePirate: That's a really good look! @Neku: How could anybody mistake you for a guy?! Those pictures are awesome. There are horses! Enjoy a brief glimpse into the Scottish Winter. A brutal time; why I'm wrapped up so tight. And there's my Otakon impression.

Nice- I had pretty much exactly the same thing, though the only thing I didn't do was Goddamn straight you beautiful, beautiful man.

Ooh,

Ugh! You are so right. The correct way is Month, day, year. There is no logic to dd/mm/yyyy. The last day of the year at 12/31/2011 has a distinct smaller to larger pattern. If you want to say 31 December 2011 then at least that makes some sense by dividing the month and the year but MM/DD/YYYY is by far the more logical and thus the correct version. I totally disagree, as others have. I don't mean to bring up an old argument, but I feel strongly about this, and for some odd reason clicking on this board took me straight to the page featuring this argument in full swing The 'date' is basically telling us what time it is. If you look at your watch (as long as it's digital), it will display hours, minutes, and seconds. So your digital watch displays the integers based on how long their real-life referent is. Hours are longer than minutes, which are longer than seconds. Your watch would not display hours, then seconds, then minutes- and that is exactly why MM/DD/YY doesn't make sense. It's the same argument. If someone had a watch that did minutes after seconds, it would seem totally pointless. The integer's values should go from smallest to largest- it doesn't matter what the integers themselves do. 'The last day of the year at 12/31/2011 has a distinct smaller to larger pattern.' What difference does it make what the last day of the year is? Sure it makes a nice pattern when you put it like that, but a significant amount of the year that nice-looking pattern isn't going to mean shit. Days are shorter than months, so we need to be reminded of them more. And months are shorter than years. D < M < Y. Putting it the other way round, like YY/MM/DD is fine; that's not what this debate is about.

Hmmm, yeah 'pretty perfect' is probably a bit of exaggeration on how I feel about it, though I do think it's the best I've experienced. The whole black/white nature of moral choices is quite a pain, I feel perhaps Heavy Rain captured that the best? You can do the right thing, but it may be the wrong thing in a different way, and vice versa. Where as, indeed, the design of ME forces people to play one way or the other 'renegade playthroughs' or 'paragon playthroughs' etc. Haha, I wouldn't even count the RDR system as moral choices. I didn't even think about it for my entire playtime. Though I imagine it'd be quite fun to try and get my 100% good reputation down to a 100% bad one... Anyone got RDR on 360 for some badness? Excellent call on all fronts.

I think moral choices are good when they are exactly that, and have an influence on the story, with maybe a secondary influence on the active gameplay. I think games that have a central mechanic built around moral choice are flawed and gimmicky. More clearly: I think moral choices primarily as a game mechanic are awful, whereas moral choices primarily as a story driving/developing mechanic is great. Mass Effect is pretty perfect as far as I'm concerned (though I could do without having a 'renegade' and 'paragon' meter. Even if they just made the meter invisible I think it'd be more interesting.) The choices you make aren't always arbitrarily one way or the other, they influence the story directly, and they can influence your gameplay experience in a subtle way. inFamous, while I love it, is an example of what I think is really rubbish moral choices. Moral choices as a game mechanic. It feels like a gimmick, it's rarely interesting, it's always one extreme or the other (where ME often has middle of the road options), and while it affects the story in a superficial way, it doesn't affect the ultimate outcome or significant events. Bad, bad, bad. Also the powers are imbalanced on either side. It's difficult in a more cheap and frustrating way if you go good. I'm doing an evil playthrough atm and it's piss-easy in comparison. In fact, I generally hate it when games force you down one path or the other, or give you X vs. Y options. Spider-Man 3 was bad (not just in the general way that it was, but) because you had a gimmicky and pointless Red suit/ Black suit thing going on. The Black suit was just better. There was no need to put the Red suit on. But it made you evil or something. Stupid.

That's good to hear! I'm assuming there are no dedicated servers anymore though? I'm trying to remember if they used matchmaking in the beta or not, I actually feel they might not have.

Indeed, for a quintessentially pulpy experience Duke 3D was actually pretty disturbing. Even the naked ladies who were all trapped up in alien spawn/egg things. As a 7 year old or so that was some fucked up shit.

You needn't say any more. I remember first time I saw a mummy I thought I had just imagined it. A figure stepping out of a doorway and going down an adjacent hall. I figured it was my imagination. I'll never forget opening that cell door and just striding on in, and this grotesque shackled figure turning round to face me, and just making the most horrific noise you've ever heard. I ran, and I ran, for a looong time. Plus I'm pretty sure games gave me my fear of general underwater stuff. The bit where you kill the tentacles in Half-Life, then when you jump down the hole you go straight down through crazy tunnels and fall in a pool of water. I've had nightmares of that happening before. Doesn't help if you know there are Icthyosaurus' in the game EDIT: Also, completely and utterly off topic, but: See that statue in the background? I had nightmares featuring that thing for three nights after seeing Black Swan. One of the most fucking disturbing images I've ever seen. It doesn't even do anything!

You talkin' 'bout KZ3 or KZ2 there? I sure hope KZ3. Should be getting it tomorrow or Tuesday =D

Resistance 1 seemed decent when I played it at a friends, but I got Resistance 2 with my own PS3, and while it was failry enjoyable, mostly in the multiplayer, I really didn't enjoy it that much. Still not finished it, though I'm most of the way through. The series just feels really directionless to me. Like "o here's an FPS exclusive for the PS3 so that people buy it", rather than, "let's make an interesting and unique series to make the most of the PS3's power" which is what most other PS3 exclusives are that I've experienced. Not hating on the game itself really, just that it seems more like a bland placeholder than a great series.

I'd like to hear about his thoughts on the indie gaming scene. Always interesting to hear about that. And Hottie, that is one fucking awkward video. Nice.