deanb

As devils advocate I will say that while it's silly to expect them to predict a quake, by the sounds of it it wasn't just that they didn't predict it, it's that they actually said it's all clear. It's a bit like if you're an electronics tester, you give a toaster a sticker of a-okay, and then it electrocutes someone then you'd expect folks to take up issue with the tester that said it was okay. But yes the ruling was retarded. Negligence at worst, not manslaughter. It does feel like there's an agenda behind it all, even if it's as simple as finding someone to blame.

That screenshot youtube chose is of course the general plotline of most Iron Man fanfics.

Akira. It's rather different from the film (or more the film is rather different from the manga). The films contains most of the major players (apart from Miyoki and Akira) and places, but many major events are omitted and the end and middle are mashed into one in the film. So yeah I'd strongly recommend the book. Makes Tetsuo not as much of a dick as he is in the film(still power hungry, but more vulnerable and a pawn), and expands upon the whole evolutiony/spiritual side of things too. Some of the different things make some of the biggest impacts. Also there's part of it where all I could think of was:

Akira. Which we found out that Netflix doesn't have. What sucks is it was the DVD version we watched, mainly cos it'd have been a PITA to set up my dodgy version that's in full HD with the original '80s dub. It's been interesting watching it this time around though cos... *jumps to another thread*

I'd say it's more simplistic than awful. But yeah there's other stuff there to keep you entertained, and for the most part you can run through a fair chunk of battles, especially the swamp area.

It should be public, as long as you've the link. *Googles* So it seems SkyDrive has a nice image viewer but a le suck form of public sharing. Edited the above post with a new link. It should be a case of "you have the link you can view the files", but in reality it seems you have to make the folder Public. Which means: "Anyone can search for and view your public files even if you don't share a link" and I'm not really up for that. So link it is and here's hoping it won't time out again.

At least when you want something done a Macbook can always have Windows installed. (And as stated many times that's not even a "anti-apple" thing, that's just a simple "OSX straight up sucks" thing. Bootcamp is pretty much it's only saving grace.)

So we've a thread of things that should go, but now I've a thread of stuff I think should be more common. I guess Tropes might not be the right word, but it helps tie in easily with the other thread Cos I've been jumping around a fair few RPGs of late there's a few in there I've picked upon: Warn if you're in an area of "no return". An area where you can't so easily just jump back to the overworld or pop back into town for a while or something. I've been playing FFXII and it warns quite clearly as you hop up to a save crystal you're in an area where you can't easily get out, so maybe make a separate save point, just in case. Incremental auto-saves. Deus Ex HR did this, I think it was either two or three auto-saves, so you wouldn't cock up or glitch and then the game save you in a totally fucked up area for eternity. This should be especially required for games that only provide an auto-save and no manual save slots. (Like Assassin Creed which I think AC:B had a auto-save related glitch) Hitting start/escape always means pause, not skip cutscene. But also in this "menu" offer a Resume and Skip option too, for those of us who have seen this before either due to playing the game already or because we did the cutscene then died. Auto-load save/battle/mission on death. Last Remnant takes you all the way to the main menu upon death, which means then loading the save file list then loading it up again instead of just reloading the battle you fucked up and letting you tweak stuff around (like Final Fantasy XIII for example). Proper deaths. As in stuff like Mirrors Edge. Where you fuck up and the game doesn't go "out of bounds" or "low health" and presents a game over, it instead follows through right to the crunch. Anywho I'm sure you've got your own.

http://www.gizmag.com/sony-controller-temperature-feedback/24599/ This looks neat. Probably won't come to pass mind, a lot of Sonys controller tech never does seem to.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/42264/Layoffs-strike-Fable-developer-Lionhead And this too, but there's no names to it so it might not be true, but given some of the true tales I have heard it probably isn't far off. http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/have-a-great-time

https://skydrive.liv...APXPsqYmmyd6JWU So I have a shit ton of space on SkyDrive and figured I may as well make use of it. Here's pretty much my entire wallpaper collection(minus the one that is called "Hubble WARNING 350MB.jpg"). I'd spent some time while offline on organising it out a bit, though there's not much of a specific structure. Could maybe do a "Concept Art" folder. There's 430 images there, so should keep you fine n dandy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/19/comics-books-embrace-gay-characters An article on introduction of LGBT characters in comic books of late. I'm, like with video games, leaning towards the "token effort" thinking, going after the pink pound n all that. But hey, at least that's the main issue folks seem to have with it than comic books ripping apart families and america n what not. http://gawker.com/5953357/missouri-pastors-fiery-speech-against-equal-rights-for-homosexuals-has-stunning-twist-ending And yes a Gawker link but it does give a bit of backstory of a plain youtube embed.

That would be a bit sucky. But this news blip suggests that it's not the case: http://kotaku.com/5953261/ What is the truth of the matter? Damned if I know, Nintendo doesn't talk about that stuff. I was more calling the lack of a unified online communication system sucky, I kinda figured third party peripherals would be fine given past history (and I think not being compatible with third party products would be illegal anyway)

I use headphones in most games, especially where positional data is good, so mainly FPS n stealth type games. I'll put on speakers for RPGs n what not. I do have subtitles too, I'm sure I've mentioned before, but it's still nice to be able to hear folks, subtitles should mainly be a back-up. Just seems working out the voice channel is something devs struggle with a lot of the time.

http://www.vg247.com...pard-2-bioware/ No "Shepard 2" in future ME games. Thing is with a universe so encompassing and relatively resolved I'm not sure what they could do. Playing as a past cycle of species is about the only thing I think they could do but it'd be a bit sucky as you know they'd be wiped out and unsuccessful. Or assume a specific colour of ME3 as true and canon and work from that, which would at least give something slightly new to play around with that doesn't involve Reapers and that part of the lore.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/10/nintendo-reveals-baffling-solution-for-wii-us-in-game-chat/ Damn that's a bit sucky.

It's now Cyberpunk 2077 (the tabletop is 2020) and has a blog. http://www.cyberpunk.net/blog/ Good first post on Pen n Paper in a video game. (It's kinda why I only partially agreed with PA's suggestion of a D&D Wii U game)

Witcher 2 is now coming to Mac and the mod tool "RedKit" will be coming next year.

Pay what you want for Interplay titles on GOG. (Which means it comes with the usual goodies) http://www.gog.com/interplay/

Oh the second bullet point was actually as a positive since yeah it's nice to hear people in conversation instead of the whole "cone of sound" some games seem to have. But yeah as the third bullet point goes, can be hard to work out where guards are based on them talking, but you get Dark Vision pretty quick so not a huge issue.

So given this a bit of a demo spin and initial impressions: Yeah the textures do kinda suck. Seems to be a bit of TF2-ness to them as well but not quite as fully there. You can hear characters conversations no matter where you're facing when they're talking to you (unlike Borderlands which gets a bit quite if you're so much as facing a few degrees off centre) That does mean Dark Vision is kinda required. It seems neat overall though. Though random spooky dude is a bit crowbarred in to give you powers.

A BBC and RPS article about a KS game that has missed its deadline/kinda been canned. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20003916 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/19/money-troubles-what-happens-when-kickstarters-fail/