deanb

http://www.neogaf.co...ad.php?t=440665 Dang it's looking much better than Oblivion. And a 40 minute video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkfera_quakecon-2011-the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim-demo-footage_videogames

Not too much difference-ish. Mainly what powers you get (it's variations on a theme) and the story you play through.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/jgy4c/is_all_the_kotaku_hate_just_because_theyre_shitty It's like some kind of Kotaku high school reunion.

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8829997577/wedding-weekend BOGOF

In other Origin news a guest post by @RockyRan http://www.pressxordie.com/2011/08/12/guest-eas-newest-platform/

I just don't get why EA/DICE just couldn't come out and say it. Technically they still haven't. The only reason we know this is cos someone went n tweeted to the community manager, there's still no official "Requires Origin to play". Checking some of the stores they've obviously not told anyone selling the game yet since it's still missing the "requires 3rd party download"/"must have an Origin Account" disclaimer. It's not technical, it's political. They've weighed the pros n cons of tying it to Origin, and given the limited/non-existent entanglement it's not something that would directly affect the game much either way. It's most likely just a recent decision, hence them not really having much of a solid word until now.

I already posted on the BF thread, but not yet put my thoughts down on the forum yet. It just seems really bonkers. There is, from what I can currently tell, absolutely zero reason to require Origin in order to play BF3. For all intents and purposes Origin has no ties whatsoever with BF3. You can say a Valve game requires Steam, but it requires Steam because it uses it for it's server browser, achievements etc. Origin is a store, download client and chat client. Battlefield 3 uses none of those functions. If you've bought it on disc you don't need to download it, the game launches from the battlelog site and the chat is it's own in-game system. Which is really where Origin falls apart: It does nothing for the games. It's a download client and that's about it. It has no other functions beyond that and little to tie it with any of the games it's being forced with. Considering EA own's pretty much all the games on it you'd think they'd make some effort to tie Origin in with their games. It's a true case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Locking off potentially half of the PC market in order to promote a service the game doesn't actually use. Origin is the gaming equivalent of an Appendix. It does nothing and it might one day kill you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=944cPciN-kw I do believe this segment was made with the aid of a bit too many paint solvents around near the animators.

Scrolls: The Elder Scrolls: If we were talking Riot Games or Runic then I'd be yeah this looks kinda similar. But as we're not I'm gonna go with a noooo. As MasterDex has said most of the time the Elder Scrolls games are known by their subtitles. Which is going to be a major stickler with proving consumer confusion. Especially when Bethesda themselves constantly refer to them as "Skyrim" or "Oblivion" etc. Minecraft, and as an extension Mojang, also has enough consumer awareness that it would be hard for consumers to confuse the two companies too. One is a full on RPG with a more realistic look the other is a card game with a cartoony art style. Might n Magic don't have much trouble with Magic: The Gathering.

https://twitter.com/#!/zh1nt0/status/100892143303925760

Yeah, having a ton of really useful powers bound to R2 was not handy. And no I didn't use the tether much since it was end-game so I'd gotten fairly used to Ice launch.

So I completed InFamous 2 last night. Pretty damn good, very good sequel. I'd say if you're brand new to the series you'd be in for a bit of a struggle since the enemies do start out a bit hard n fast, but as a sequel it works very well. Apart from a couple you generally keep most of your old powers, which is awesome cos starting without the ability to rail grind n glide would be annoying as hell. (starting an evil game on InFamous was a pain just cos of that) The new powers are pretty damn good, especially the ice launch. I became fucking superman with that, working out if I could make that gap. Which was lucky cos when you're needing to leap from boat to boat near the end there's a ton of very very just-gonna-make-it leaps. It did become a slight issue with the "follow person to base" missions though, cos ice launcher + improved glide meant I became faster than most enemies. The upgrade system has mostly removed the morality side of things so at least you're not going to be too fucked if you waver mid-way through. In fact I think only one set of powers is morality based, the rest being based on a choice you make midway through the story. Story wise it's all pretty good, though the pause menu map and the news reports didn't match Most of it was all pretty easy to spot early on: From what I can tell the dead drops take into account if you were good or bad in the last game which is neat. The actual ending, I went for good, is a bit The mid-boss creatures were pretty harsh this time around, especially the Ice Titans. Hated those. Though it was the only one with any kind of sequence required to take down, most just going down with a few blasts/bat swings or a few grenades until dead. I do think some being immune to certain attacks was unfair. Especially the ones immune to most of your Ionic Charge attacks. When you can only use it 1-3 times and it's fairly hard to recharge it shouldn't be something most can shrug off. Also the storm thing in the last game let you control it, but this time it's a straight line so it can be a tad useless as you can weave it about to hit as many as possible. All in all an enjoyable game, though could do with a couple more proper bosses (I felt the three in InFamous was slim, but only having two in InFamous 2 is well off. Especially when all lumped on the end. Oh wait I guess you fight one twice. Still)

I kinda disliked Oblivions since I ended up being able to jump buildings in a single bound. Also if you chose wrongly then you couldn't level up overall cos you hardly used the skills put down as Major to level those up. I do think that in theory it's a nice system, but in practice it doesn't work so well. Especially if the enemies or maps favour close combat and you want to level up your bow. Oh Fable 3 did similar btw, it changed your weapon depending on your actions, and the sub-weapons would also upgrade based on "Bone Crusher Hammer" killing 50 Skeletons with it or whatever.

Well a bad one would be the first InFamous since most of your upgrades are tied to your characters morality. Which means if you deviate at any point you fuck up the powers you can get. I'm not a huge fan of the "tree" type upgrade paths (like Borderlands, WoW, Diablo, Torchlight, most games like that) It does allow for a tad more refinement but it can lock out other powers you may want access to unless you go for the crappy prerequisite you don't want. Though of course the more linear model is a tad boring I guess. re-forging type unlocks I hate cos most of the time it's a single use forge item on some weapon you're most likely to toss away or move on from. See Witcher 2, Final Fantasy X. So in the end you spend the game with like the same few weapons and then at the end you have like a collection of half a dozen forge items. Regarding FPS upgrades: I hate MP based unlocks. I get it keeps people playing, but damn it's a horrible system. Oh boring upgrades are ones that are like "reduces casting time by 0.2s" I think an unlock system should ultimately provide some nice progression, be well paced, and help to define your character as your own. If you're a ranged guy then let us build up on our ranged stuff, if it's a close up brutal guy then same with that. Most of the basic SPECIAL-type RPG stuff is pretty good. It's simple, but helps to easily redefine your character, and on the fly too. So no locking yourself into a specific class right away. Fallout 3/NV is good. SPECIAL for main upgrades/advancement with the perk system which provides a bunch of level based stuff with no pre-requisites but having your SPECIAL meet it. Which doesn't matter much since if you're wanting to go in guns a blazing and get a mini-gun related perk you likely have your strength up high to match so it's not really locking you out.

InFamous 2, good ending. I'll put down my thoughts later.

Bet they didn't see that coming.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/98200/ There is both a demo and it's the weekend deal. So if you get someone to buy it with you it's £5.

I'd heard whispers of this, thought it was some joke: http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/8/11/cameron-threatens-shut-down-uk-social-networks/

Currently I'm listening to This. Which is weird to have it going so late in the day. (normally it's something that's pre-7AM. Oh and it doesn't normally go off several days in a row)

http://www.eurogamer...internet-debate well, errm...yeah. I see really badly wording things is an industry talent cos "force things to be acceptable" is not really the best line in the world. Also automatic updates and always on DRM isn't really something that goes hand-in-hand.

So from what I'm hearing, over in the US it's been thought to be a race thing (mark duggan been black, a chunk of rioters being black). It's not it's very much a class thing. We have class-ism(?) where US has racism. Our class structure isn't as simple as "Everyone is middles class!" And FSD there's no aims or goals or they'd have been marching, most likely right for Parliament (it's shut atm), or Downing Street. This is looting. It's main aim is to get free stuff and show the police what for.

http://tf2.com/post.php?id=6040

Welcome to the reasoning behind part of our review summary.