MasterDex

Yes. That must have been it.

From that link: From Steve Ranck's reply to that question, I'd say what I said was wholly accurate*. Metal Arms wasn't an idea pitched to many developers and you'd know that if you read your link carefully. it was an original idea created in-house at Swingin' Ape Studios and was picked up to be published by Vivendi after shopping it around other publishers. It was created and developed in-house by Swingin' Ape Studios. *or at least as accurate as I can be. I can't speak to how true my imaginary publisher's contract stipulations are since I'm not privvy to the contract that Swingin' Ape Studios signed but I'm willing to wager, given the lack of marketing the game saw and the amount of publishers they presented the game to and the current situation of the IP rights, that it was a pretty bum deal for Swingin' Ape Studios. EA (Hold the rage) and their Partners program is also a step in the right direction. I think the next few years are going to be crucial for developers that want to retain their IP rights. Unless copyright law is completely rewritten (which it probably should be), it's likely only going to get harder and harder for developers to hang on to their IPs, especially if they hope to get some shelf space or airtime.

Metal Arms wasn't commissioned. It was created and developed by Swingin' Ape Studios and then published by Vivendi. Vivendi didn't approach the studio to make the game. The developers approached Vivendi to publish the game.

No, that's a different kettle of fish. That would be a commissioned work and Nike would be the owner of the new logo from the get-go. The agency wouldn't be creating a logo and then selling it, they would be creating a logo that they're being paid to create. What Jim is talking about is how a band, developer, etc could create something and then, to get the work released or the funds needed to finish the work, have to turn to a record label or publisher who would say "We'll publish this but you have to hand over all the rights" and then go on to undermarket, rush etc the work and then hang onto the copyrights indefinitely. There's a whole world of fucked up in copyright law - and it gets worse every time Disneys years are up.

I dunno, the story in FFXIII was pretty bad. I've only experienced a third of it but I'll happily take your word for it! I'm too lazy to go searching for it now but did Nomura make a comment before along the lines of "I got to make Versus XIII because FFXIII was turning out to be a P.O.S"? That's very liberal paraphrasing but I remember him making a comment like that. To sum up my thoughts on FFXIII: I'd watch it if it was a feature length movie and probably enjoy it a lot....but as far as games go, I'd rather play Dirge of Cerberus. Also, Dirge of Cerberus is a very underrated game.

Hate is a strong word. I'd say, at least in my case, that 99% of the time I've read or listened to Sterling that I've disagreed with him vehemently.

^This^ But I will say that I'm shocked that Jim Sterling is actually talking sense....but it's like "Dude, we've been shouting this shit at you for years, regurgitate more?"

I think you're misunderstanding when they say the story was finally completed. While they would have had the story written already and much of the game developed, they wouldn't have had all of the storyboards transformed into cut scenes and cinematics, script edits, etc. It would be virtually impossible to create a game like FFXIII without having the story written before development begins proper.

I think I'm in the same camp as Dean as far as Tablets go. If I had one, I'd make use of it but I don't have any real desire to get one.

I won't throw my name in the hat since I don't like hearing the sound of my own voice - seriously, I don't but it should make for some good laughs so I'l support ye all the way.

I respectfully disagree, Strangelove. Sakaguchi may have only been director of the early FF games but his influence on the development of all Final Fantasy games he was involved with is fairly easy to see. You can see the how the type of game that Final Fantasy used to be became the type of game Mistwalker began creating and though you might not think that Blue Dragon was fantastic, it was certainly above par and certainly better (gameplay-wise) than FFXIII. Sakaguchi gets the credit he gets because he deserves it. I think you're just trying to downplay his influence on the series as a whole. It's fair enough if you want to believe there's no correlation between the shift that Final Fantasy went through and Sakaguchi leaving but I think the correlation is pretty self-evident. You've got Sakaguchi and Nomura, master and apprentice. Nomura follows the path that Sakaguchi laid out pretty well while still instilling some of his own style in his games. Then you've got Toriyama, who comes from an entirely different, and I daresay more profit-orientated, school of game design who hasn't directed anything that could be held side-by-side with anything Sakaguchi has worked on. My point is that what Final Fantasy was and what it is are two entirely different things and though I don't claim that Sakaguchi has a perfect track record, I do claim that he has a better grasp on what made the Final Fantasy series - and JRPGs in general - fun to play. Personally, I'd consider both FFX and FFXII fairly traditional from a 'bigger picture' design PoV. While XII offers a more MMO-style battle system, it keeps pretty well with the design philosophy of the Final Fantasy series. FFXIII on the other hand entirely eschews that philosophy and that's the reason so many diss it. While you might think that there was nothing that Final Fantasy was all about, there were things that, from the very first Final Fantasy, cemented themselves to the series (or the greater part of it at least). Of course, there were additions along the way but the spirit of what Final Fantasy was all about remained. I can't imagine that the series would have gained the popularity it has if the games in it were structured more like FFXIII than FFVI, FFVII or FFIX. I don't think I oversimplified FFXIII at all and I think your inability to mention anything but story, characters and mythology as the things that kept you playing shows that. We're not talking about a movie or a book where those things have high relevance. We're talking about a game and as far as I'm concerned, the game part is the most relevant part of the whole. You can have great characters and fantastical worlds, etc, etc but without good gameplay (Which FFXIII doesn't have - at most it's mediocre), you can't objectively say that the game is good. The GAME isn't good. The stuff around the game may be but what's the point of a game that looks and sounds and reads nicely if it doesn't play nicely? Perhaps it's a difference in what we believe makes a game a game but if I was Toriyama, I'd be ashamed.

You poked a bear! Seriously though, as awful (and it is awful) as the level design is, it's the whole package that brings a tear to any true Final Fantasy fans eye. And no, I'm not talking about the fans that tout VII as the best ever Final Fantasy in every aspect and spend their spare time writing Mills&Bloom style fanfiction about Tifa. I'm talking about the fans that have loved Final Fantasy for the game as much as the story. Once Sakaguchi left, Square-Enix lost all sight of what Final Fantasy was all about and their confused little minds though Final Fantasy was all about visuals and fancy designs and anime storylines. No. Final Fantasy was about traversing a world and getting stronger, visiting villages to do side-quests, hunting down summons, finding hidden stories, playing mini-games and testing your skill against ultra-powerful optional bosses. That's a lot of GAMEPLAY right there. What does XIII have? Follow the line, battle, watch the cutscene, repeat. That's not a lot of game there. The fact that you feel referencing Mass Effect as an alternative is valid is nearly enough to prove that. Why didn't Blue Dragon, Dragon Quest, The Last Story, Lost Oddessy or one of the other decent JRPGs this generation come to mind? Because what comes to mind with XIII are games where gaming takes a backseat. As a huge Final Fantasy fan, I was really disappointed with XIII. I'm sure it's a wonderful game movie but it's not what Final Fantasy is really about. Versus XIII will hopefully recapture some of that magical Final Fantasy gameplay, at least Nomura has a better grasp of what Final Fantasy is all about but honestly, aside from Versus XIII, I think I'm done with the series. It's a good thing then that the spirit of Final Fantasy lives on in Mistwalker and The Last Story.

No, drinking Bovril is pretty normal, albeit among the older generations, here in Ireland too. Don't drink it myself but I have used it in place of proper gravy mix on occassion.

It's tempting alright, especially with the amount of hot Polish women that have made Ireland their home but I don't think I could learn it well enough to enjoy the books in their original language. The Last Wish was fantastic so it's certainly going to be hard for Blood of Elves to measure up but I'm sure I'll enjoy it nonetheless. I'm a Witcher fanboy after all, lol.

Those little differences in keyboard layout can be a real pain at times. For instance, with the first BF3 patch, DICE botched the language files so that the US English language file was installed instead of the UK English ones. This also translated over to the keyboard layouts so when I went to type @, I was typing " instead - Which would have been fine if @ wasn't needed for admin commands and its position wasn't so ingrained in my mind AND GAMERS WEREN'T SUCH FUCKING BITCHES WHO CAN'T WAIT 5 SECONDS BEFORE ASKING "WHY U NOT KICK CHEATER?!" *Ahem* But yeah. Stupid, pointless keyboard differences.

Unless they're like Chew, I see no reason to be pissed off. If you had to wait for so long just to get to A Dance with Dragons and had years to imagine how it would turn out, then yeah, you'd be pissed but as someone who read from the first to aDwD in quick succession just this year, I see no reason to be pissed - it's a great book. I've finally got around to ordering Blood of Elves, the second Witcher book. I've ordered from an Irish book site that has a store in my city so with any luck I'll be able to pick it up from there on Wednesday. can't wait to get stuck into it. The third book is supposed to be getting a translation this year too so what better time to pick it up.

Yesterday I grabbed Dungeon Keeper 2, Freespace 2 and Psychonauts on GoG.com. Yay for retro gaming!

Did you benchmark any games on your new PC yet?

It's a complicated issue that goes beyond simply foxconn but where the platinum and other materials necessary for production are sourced from too. It's an ugly world we live in but at the end of the day, we have to accept that to live the lifes that we live, other lives will be lost. We can try and work towards improving the situation by fighting against the horrible regimes that control some of these resources. But yeah, I don't think the blame or guilt lies solely with game makers or gamers but with humanity as a whole.

Human rights are in no way governed by god or by nature, though they may be influenced by such. It's because of human rights charters, written and created by man, for man that we have human rights in the first place - like the rightto free speech and the right to freedom of religion. Though Rights of Man was a great philisophical piece, Paine's view on rights and how they are granted is a bit idealistic. Were it left to "God", very few humans would have rights and the chosen few would have the right to own the rest as slaves. Were it left to nature, rights would be thrown out the window altogether and our rights would extend only so far as each individual could defend them, or as Thomas Hobbes put it : Though they may be born from idealistic thinking, our human rights charters are the legal constructs of man and are open to change, regardless of how inalieanable and concrete we believe them to be. It's hard to view the internet as anything but a privilege or mere tool as a westerner but were it not for the internet, critical information to the survival of many would have been surpressed - which is why the right to the internet (.ie. that it cannot be taken away, suppressed or censored) is a sticking point for the UN at the moment. There's little that rouses a crowd like a "human rights violation" and anything against the UDHR is considered as such. If the right to the internet were added to the UDHR, it would give the UN more power, enabling them to impose sanctions against nations that supress the internet. I feel like I'm playing Devil's advocate here, perhaps I'm more in favour of the idea than I first thought. Disregarding, for a moment, whether the internet should or should not be a human right, what do ye think could be the negative effects, if any, of such a right?

Ikaruga is ALL about practice and repetition so it doesn't suprise me that you can't power through just after picking it up for the first time in so long. When I was playing it constantly, I could ace the first and second levels. It's all about pattern recognition with Ikaruga. What enemies come when, what way to move, when to change polarity, etc. The second level is a pain to master with the deluge of small jet fighters near the start but it's straight-forward enough beyond that. I never got close to mastering any level past the first two though. if you've got the 360 version, the top player videos are a great learning tool.

Believe it or not but it's actually the UN that are pushing this idea of the internet as a human right. Here's the full UN report if you want to read it: 22 page .pdf For those who don't want to delve into it right now, or at all, here's the summary as laid out on the first page of the report: Essentially what the UN wants to do is make internet access a human right so as to increase their 'power' against dictatorial regimes that censor or shut-off access to the internet. I can understand their reasoning behind it but I still find it hard to accept it as an inalienable human right. That said, the report also urges against cutting internet in cases of IP infringement and could, should SOPA go through, be the path to protecting the freedom of the internet as that bill could easily be seen as censorship of the internet. Despite all that however, I'm still torn on the issue. I'm sure we'll be hearing more on it in the coming months as the Arab Spring continues and SOPA gets close to passing. Yeah, it'd be the UN that would determine it but as of now, there's no other specific form of communication considered to be a human right to my knowledge.

For some time now, especially after the Arab Spring, there's been a drive to make the internet one of the inalienable human rights. Reading an article on Techspot about Vint Cerf's (the creator of the TCP/IP protocol) opinion brought it to my mind once again. It's hard to argue with his logic but I still find myself torn. Its effectiveness during the Arab Spring, the Iranian elections and in many other cases cannot be denied and I personally couldn't see myself enjoying life as much without it but it's very difficult to view it as an inalienable right when it's merely a tool for communication. So what are your thoughts on it? Should it, in particular, be a human right? If it was, where could this lead us in the future in regards to human rights?