deanb

http://www.bafta.org/awards/video-games/ 9:00PM GMT

I posted this in the News Feed last night worth posting up here(not this article) http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/16/oh-ubisoft-torrented-their-own-music Ubisoft of "we don't give a shit if legit players can use our game" DRM, have pirated their own sound track to put in the PC deluxe edition of Brotherhood. Stay Classy

That Phail guy has generally been going into any events we post as of the past month or so with just a "no" or something. Couple weeks back he even said he was leaving the group. Apparently he didn't follow through.

McKay > Carter

Yeah it's a NES game for sure. Most likely either Lemmings or SMB3

Yeah that can happen. Also I was gonna give a leg up with your interview, but seems someone already had for Part one, so I did part 2. btw I assume "John Carmack: Xbox 360 > Playstation 3 > Everything Else" got a few hits

Yeah I'll be honest, I'm replaying it and Geralts VA isn't bad, but some of it could do with a bit of work. Kinda Oblivion-esque And I'm a fan of the combat, it kinda grows on you. It's not like it's terrible and awkward, just can be a bit bland I guess. Seems they're really going for a more visual feast with fancy flourishes n such in the second. If you hit spot on (the combat kinda plays like guitar hero with "good" "perfect" n "miss") if you get the "perfect" he goes all out and it looks pretty fancy. Most the time it's "good". The alchemy is pretty nice and I'd love to see a similar feature in Skyrim, having stuff align to particular bases you mix them up wither with known or experimental recipes. It'd be a nice skill/class to have. Like a perk that kind maybe makes useful ingredients stand out more when mixing. Also by first chapter you mean the one with The Beast yeah, not the epilogue in the castle? Cos I'm doing it for a second run it's all going much smoother. I think it's kind of a case of shrugging off what you "know" on "how to play WRPGs" and just going with it's thing. Also remembering to sleep n stuff, if you don't do that it gets a bit funky cos you spend every night wandering through demon dogs which gets a bit of a grind. You only need to do that like twice.. maybe three times if you don't position yourself near squirrels for that quest.

Yeah, they dropped the price on GoG but it's still not massively competitive with other outlets. And GoG should be able to get new folks through it's old games, which are good. I've bought a few games through them, not bad experience compared to other DD outlets. Helps their games are as updated as they'll ever be which is a slight issue with other DD outlets. Still, they have their own DD network, can't hate em for doing some self-publishing even it it's maybe not a very appropriate game for the service they have.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/4chan-founder-to-facebook-ceo-you-8217re-doing-it-wrong/785 Kinda related.

http://news.bigdownload.com/2011/03/15/gog-com-offers-exclusive-pre-order-video-chat-with-the-witcher-2/ Certainly quite the incentive. I'm kinda juggling between price and if I want my items physically . I think I'll be ordering a physical copy from Play or similar.

The VG BAFTAs will air tomorrow night. I'll add a link in here, hope the stream works for international users. If not I may macgyver a streaming system with the Livestream stuff. Either way I'm planning to post the results up on PXOD, get a few screenshots etc.

So apparently Homefront didn't score great reviews. Enough so that THQs stocks dropped 26% today. $ 5.67 - $ 4.54 So to the question earlier of who reads metacritic? well now you have your answer Oh and this is THQ of "metatcritic means everything, you need a game to be 80 or above or you're fucked"

I quite liked it, not used the Echoes yet, nor finished the game. But I enjoyed it. Just dislike the dialogue. I look forward to more "kill with skill" games.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-15-brink-uk-pre-order-deals-revealed UK pre-order deals It comes with several packs that change what items you, the fan of the game that is ordering it before the reviews are even out, will get/be limited to. Themed along the lines of zenimax franchises.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/15/biowhere-ea-working-on-fixing-game-bans/ Things aren't looking good. The ban we heard of last week wasn't the first time they've done it, just seems to be the first time it's become a large story for the press. EA kinda backtracking left right n centre on what is quite obviously a bit of a PR disaster. I'd had to be working in EA's legal dept right now....

Well we can always make a thread on reviews and metacritic (I think we actually have one btw) if you want.

Enough people that potentially games can live or die on their metacritic ratings. Personally I don't use them, but I do put stock in user reviews on other sites and equally suspicious of PR sounding glowing reviews. It's a dirty habit and one I'd of hopped Bioware were above, but apparently not.

ta-da!

While 4chan n co dropping the score is a dickhead move, and I'd imagine folks would be smart enough to notice the huge difference between the press reviews and the user reviews, it is very very murky waters for employees to be pushing up review scores on their own products. Not saying companies don't do that, but the general trick is to not be caught because it's deeply deeply frowned upon.

Ah crap, I thought I'd put in a bit specifically mentioning not to use analogies, then went on to my part of instead just using basics. Analogies are a minefield as the person you're explaining to may have different ideas on the thing you're making your comparison to that warps the idea you're trying to get across.

I think you can simplify without having to jump into misinformation. If people don't want to know, then you're fucked from the get go. But if folks want to learn then give them the benefit of the doubt and head in somewhere that's not condescending then build up. If they don't understand then you back down a bit. If you're trying to explain something really complex then you don't want to dumb it down too much or you become totally removed from the original thing you're trying to get across.

Internet Explorer 9 is now officially out. Don't all rush at once.

It is common practice for companies to check your Facebook account nowadays, some companies reduce their applicants by about 50% on Facebook alone. I don't think it's really fair that a drunken night out as a student or whatever can come back to haunt you. To be fair though, just set your profile to completely private and it's not a problem. I know this. But we're not talking about a quick glance like many companies do, we're talking about wading through 2 decades of a person's internet history, which is more than a bit obscene. Who says they're going to be fishing through everything you did. Your name coming up on WoW forums, Stormfront, facebook, union websites, political party sites, etc etc will tell quite enough without having to go fishing too deep. It's partly why folks were so opposed to the RealID stuff. employers aren't meant to use this kind of info in whether they employ you, doesn't stop them doing it. And who knows what other services will pop up in the coming years.