deanb

I second this motion. edit:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/189448/Metacritics_weighting_system_revealed.php The Metacritic weighting system has been reverse engineered.

Damn, that's quite a slow load. And quite the speed update. Good on Nintendo for that. I had heard a jab on twitter other day referencing this with it being the opposite of Xbox updates making it slow.

I should note Infinite is running quite well on my 9600GT. Sure it's not on high, but it runs better than I expected.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/26/sony-open-to-buy-in-alpha-games-for-playstation-platforms/ Sony open to purchasable in-alpha games. This really is a console built in the west isn't it.

The simple answer Slightly more in-depth/not too spoilery. Really in-depth/spoilery.

So I've completed it, here are my thoughts. Game itself As noted it's Bioshock in the sky. I think probably one of the main losses to me is the hacking mini-games, all the more evident at the ability to point Elizabeth at a lock and go "unlock that for me" and as long as you've enough locks she does. There's also no map, which can get a bit frustrating. Other than that everything is exactly as it is in Bioshock. Story That Scene Heh, was just about to go "I'll likely play it in the future again, but no immediate compulsion". Then realised another feature removed: choices along the lines of the little sister. Storywise they affected it very little, but game wise it changed the gameplay a bit and means bit of replayability.

Bioshock Infinite. Overall, rather good. Very much Bioshock but in the clouds. There are of course differences here and there beyond that, but largely plays the same. I'll throw more thoughts at it in the Bioshock thread.

http://www.popcap.com/promos/pax-east-2013 Peggle for free.

So, thoughts so far, 3/4 hours in. The opening Elizabeth Show restraint with lockpicks, even if you get the extra 5 from pre-order. The rest It's Bioshock in the sky, down the to plasmids, random tapes, eating food, vending machines(same VA too), guns. Just name changes on these things instead. The rails is the main major addition, along with Elizabeth. Also no hacking so far, not sure if it'll be in ever actually. edit: Bugs Yeah their miles of code contains a few odd bugs here n there, nothing majorly game breaking though one is an annoyance. First is a visual bug, when bodies disappear after being attacked with Murder of Crows, the blood spatter on them remains where the corpse once was. The other is that some users, myself included, aren't receiving any steam achievements. I had disabled Steam Cloud already, not sure if that's a cause or something I'll be glad to have removed later if it turns out the Steamworks implementation (thier last game was GFWL, so they're a bit new to it) isn't fully up to scratch and saves go vamoosh. So yeah as a precaution I'd maybe disable Steam Cloud.

A "Gameplay" trailer for ACIV. Doesn't have any straight up gameplay though.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1azand/nissan_leaf_charging_station_found_in_games_code/ So overt product placement is either an upcoming or scrapped feature of SimCity. It's the game that keeps on giving.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-25-you-can-unlock-bioshock-infinites-ultra-hard-1999-mode-without-completing-the-game You can unlock the 1999 mode without an initial regular playthrough if you so wish. Details in the article.

I know. They've banned and kept many things.

The supposed new logo.

It needs official blessing to be allowed on the store, it's curated like Apple's App Store, not free-for-all like Google Play.

I'm not saying it's harming anyone. Just that it's pointless at best.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/ouya-to-bolster-launch-games-with-nes-snes-n64-emulation/ It'll be releasing with NES, SNES, and N64 emulators available from Ouya store. (All others you can still sideload). Quite a bold stance they'll be taking to make it an official feature.

40,000 isn't a few cans. And to what purpose is the infograph if not to go "look how big this all is, it's even longer than a book and the trip to the capital"? There's no "too long" or "too short", that's pretty much my point, none of these are metrics useful for anything. Depends if Infinite is a perfect pristine game and those "miles of code" don't contain any issues if it's something used as a jab for years to come. A recent example is you've seen the discussion about Fez coming to PC right? @WaS: There's many other ways, such as trailers, interviews, featurettes, etc to cover a game than a pre-release infographic.

The main point being practically none of these are useful metrics for anything. Games that have taken as long, if not longer, have been shit. Energy and pop consumption are hardly things to be gloating about, and yes there's a lot of code in modern games, a fair chunk in pre-built libraries, and it's not measured in miles. Lots of code could be a case of lots of things in the game, or could be a large case of unoptimised code. Once again it tells us nothing. The Amazon thing was more for a bit of extra information, since 20K extra isn't saying much if you don't know the size you're adding to. And yes it would be much more useful to compare with other games than novels. It's a badly thought out infographic for infographics sake, and given it has nothing positive to say on the game, leaves on the neutral or negative. The miles of code thing is likely to remain a jovial mocking point for years to come.

Well according to Amazon their script length is only 1/3 longer than the average novel. Just seems to be something weird to brag about. It took a long time to make, our power consumption could probably be more efficient, we drink way too much pop, and don't know how to measure code properly. Their marketing dept might want to hold back a little bit, they're getting silly. In other news, it unlocks for me in a bit over 19hrs. I'm kinda on the low-end of specs at the moment, but I'll see how it runs might give a bit of a streaming session if there's interest. At the very least expect a couple of (heavily spoilered) views in here in the next day or two.

A trailer, having those two games so close together like that really highlights some of the stark differences. Now a case of waiting on when it comes out, if it's doing the PS3/Vita combo thing, and if it's the PAL release or not.