RockyRan

Agreed. There's a reason why people always look back on Metroid Prime's "Samus's face reflects on the screen when there are bright lights" feature with fondness. You don't need obnoxious depth of field or motion blur to notice that they add a significant amount to the overall package. Not to mention those pictures are tiny. Subtle effects are going to be hard to spot, but that doesn't mean they're not there or that they don't matter to the game's overall aesthetic.

You ask for a reason why he's bitching about the article. He gives you one. And you willingly refuse to read it because...it's too long? In a forum where you do nothing but read text? I'm getting flashbacks from my GameFAQs message board days...

You'd be surprised how many female gamers there are out there. Some chick who I could've sworn knew nothing about gaming casually brought up on Facebook something about her Gears addiction. Of course it's probably not a common sight but I get consistently surprised at the breadth of gaming's appeal myself

I think a reviewer failing to mention the importance of micro-mechanics in a game can be the difference between people saying it's a good review and them saying it's "too nitpicky". It can very well feel like someone is picking its if they mention micro mechanics most all the time, but in my opinion great games can be ruined just by one simple mistake. Take Scurge: Hive for the Nintendo DS. I love the art style, I love the premise, I love the graphics, I love the basic gameplay, and I love the idea. Too bad I can't fucking play it because the game has a horrendous camera system that literally gives me nausea after 2 minutes of playing. It's unplayable for me, and if I were a reviewer on some major game review site I'd probably give it a low score because of that. And I'd probably be called out on it as being "nitpicky" if I don't stress how important something like that is. A lack of good macro mechanics can also make a game feel hollow. I think the lack of engaging macro-mechanics is the reason why some people don't finish games that they actually think are good but they just "lost interest". That loss of interest, IMO, is probably a deficiency in macro-mechanics making the game engaging. It's the "yeah, so what?" factor. Yeah, so you have good micro-mechanics, so what? Where are you going with this? What's the purpose, the overall structure, the sense of progression? If reviews are anything to go by, something like Alice: Madness Returns is a prime example of a game with poor macro mechanics. (unless P4's definition of macro mechanics is something else entirely )

To be perfectly honest, I don't know. There really WASN'T a reason why the GameCube failed, I guess it's just that everyone was too busy having a perpetual rave on the PS2. One clear-cut mistake Nintendo made was the tiny GC discs. Back in the day I heard plenty of times how such-and-such PS2/Xbox game didn't come to the GameCube because of disc limitations. But still, I highly doubt that was THE reason. My main point in bringing up the GameCube is that if Ninty's not careful they're going to put themselves into a GameCube-like position, in which no matter what they'll do they won't succeed, with mediocre (albeit still profitable) console sales and having the industry generally not give a shit about them. Wasn't so much a problem with the Wii because so many non-gamers loved it, but I maintain that the Wii's success will probably never be replicated. Nintendo at least somewhat seems to realize this, because they didn't focus so much on casual gaming with the Wii U but rather the "coolness" factor of the tablet controller and the purported 3rd party support. At the same time I can't help but feel like they're not too sure what they're doing themselves. I mean, I realize the console is still in development, but their ambivalence in giving any real detail as well as a generally mixed approach as to who they're actually targeting doesn't give me confidence they know what they're doing. At least with the Wii they said they were targeting a Blue-Ocean strategy since day 1 and stuck with it. They're trying to be all Jack-of-all-Trade-y now and if they're not careful it could backfire.

I'm gonna go ahead and agree with Phallus on the Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I saw the trailer for the first time when I went to watch First Class. I was completely and absolutely dumbfounded and how utterly retarded the premise sounded. I mean, a serious action movie that consists of monkeys taking over the world. Wat. Then I saw the title and I thought "you know, this is probably the ONE instance where I would've preferred the name of the move they were advertising BEFORE they showed the trailer". Not nearly as stupid looking at it from a PotA prequel, but taking the movie trailer at face value it really did look terrible and stupid.

Yeah, I mean MS is already struggling horribly to justify the cost as it is I love how every E3 they go up on stage and rave about support from yet another website, touting it as "SO MUCH VALUE ADDED TO LIVE". This year it was YouTube. And I saw this announcement on Youtube. I suppose MS is targeting the "dumbass who doesn't realize he has working computer" demographic with the way they act every E3 as if they had invented these websites solely for Live on the 360. Uh,

I will never understand why Microsoft introduced Kinect into the Xbox brand. The technology is really neat and the applications people are cooking up for it are great, but the peripheral's a joke for anyone who plays games longer than 5 minutes at a time. I wish Microsoft would stop with the charade about how "WE SO EXCITED" for Kinect on gaming. Nobody cares, MS. And repeating it that we SHOULD care isn't going to suddenly convince us that we will.

This is the problem with a continued insistence to make large amounts of profit per console. I know that's how Nintendo rolls, but it sacrifices overall product quality. I fail to see how 2006/2005 technology is anything but dirt cheap. They can most definitely make a console significantly more powerful than current generation and still be able to sell it at ~$250 with the Wii U tablet controller included. Or maybe NOT expect a ridiculous amount of profit per console. Miyamoto's talking about the "balance" between price and power as if it's something that's out of Nintendo's control, even though it isn't. And TBH, this isn't the first time Nintendo tries to bullshit us (remember the "We're not doing online in NSMBWii because the game already uses too much of the Wii's power" statement? Yeah, what idiot bought that reasoning?) I'm quickly losing faith in Nintendo's ability to sustain a serious gaming console. If they don't watch where they're going Nintendo could very well have another GameCube in their hands.

In further hindsight, I can take Dark Knight seriously when compared to anything Val Kilmer did as Batman, and: I won't mention the other one, but with how tacky, cheesy, and zany some previous Batman films were I can look pass a burn victim and a guy in an armored bat suit talking about humanity. Yeah, I mean, I didn't mean to say it was a really big problem with TDK. It was still one of the best superhero films hands down and it dealt with its themes very well. There were just moments when I was like "wait no, this is a little too serious" that took me out of the movie for like 10 seconds, but then I went right back in. TDK is a bit of an anomaly with how good it is, though. TBH I'd prefer it if comic book movies would be cheesy rather than serious considering how poorly Hollywood tends to do with comic book films, much less comic book films that take themselves seriously and aren't a distaster doing so.

Most of the time it seemed like xsbs was literally going out of his way to have the worst taste in video games. I can't remember very many specific instances (I'll chalk it up to repressed memories) but the one that really stood out for me was when he called The Last Guardian incredibly boring with bad graphics and the generic "brown-n-grey" color scheme. Basically, he was the proverbial Armond White of Kotaku. If there was a great trailer or a preview of a game that looked good, you can bet your ass he would say something terrible about it. He didn't come across as a troll, just as one of those poor people with unfortunately terrible taste in games. In many ways I find that far more pitiful than a guy spending all day trolling for no reason.

Meh. I've made ~.008 after like 6 hours, so for nVidia users this isn't worth our time at all. Not sure this is even covering the electricity needed to run the card for this long. But congrats on the cashola nonetheless . You better spend it on something nice >

Basic hardware architecture I think. There's an explanation somewhere on the Wiki. I gots me like .0028 after a few hours and I gots me a GTX 460. I dunno, it's obviously not the best rate but I'm getting some'n. Also, apparently MtGox got haxxorzed (yeah, what isn't these days?). Hooray for security everywhere. How many bitcoins did you have for that $10 Amazon card? EDIT: Pah. Screw this. I'm getting practically nothing out of my nVidia GPU. I'd much rather use it for gaming all day rather than to get 0.01 BTC after hours of mining. I'm outta here.

http://www.bitcoinpool.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=129 That's...using an ATI GPU? There's no mention of nVidia cards (which I know are far inferior for this apparently).

Can't believe I haven't posted mine yet. http://steamcommunity.com/id/mrpantaloons

So...what exactly is this?

Saw First Class over the weekend, and yes I very much liked it. It had pretty much everything I want a comic book movie to be. Serious but not too serious, fantastical, flashy without being obnoxious, sincere without being overly melodramatic, stylized without being completely detached from reality, and some heart-pumping action thrown in for good measure. My bro thought it was too cheesy, but I wholeheartedly disagree. It's a comic book movie, it HAS to be cheesy in some way. One of the things that don't look too good on the Dark Knight in hindsight. Watched it not too long ago and while it was still quite enjoyable, it just took itself way too seriously at times. You're all wrapped up in the story then you realize there's a dude with a half-burnt face and a guy in a bat suit talking like he stabbed his throat with an ice pick and the movie conversing about the pitfalls of humanity and they expect you to take it dead-seriously. It's like, no. Besides, it certainly wasn't as cheesy as that damn X-men 3 movie. Good god that thing was shit. I'm very impressed with how they were able to make an X-men movie NOT suck after the last two. Usually a reboot 7+ years after the last PoS is required before a movie from a series is considered "good" again, so kudos to them.

Indeed. I don't mind at all if someone does't agree with a single thing I said, but using cheap cop-outs like "well that's your opinion" reeks of laziness, as if I'm supposed to respect that guy's opinion just because it's an opinion. No. I respect a guy's opinion if it's well thought out and backed up with specific examples or a series of logical thoughts. It's also indicative that they're not even listening to you at all, and it makes you feel like you're just talking to a brain-dead parrot.

I really hate it (though I don't have any specific instances in mind) when there's a well-thought post or article about a specific opinion (such as why a game is bad or something), complete with good examples, logical conclusions, and thoughtful analysis, and then in the comments some dumbass "refutes" this with "well w/e I liked it". Just fucking no. It's like these people don't read or don't even WANT to exercise their lethargic grey matter on things such as "maybe this guy has a point". I'm not saying people should agree with an opinionated article, but you just can't say "no" without any real reason unless you want to sound like an immature child. In short, people just don't get to refute a well-thought-out opinion with a simple "lolno". I mean, they can, they'll just sound like dumbasses when doing so. I also get annoyed when people say "an opinion is an opinion", especially when comparing between one that is based on concrete evidence and is logical and a brain-dead opinion from some random fanboy. Opinions aren't created equally, and really shouldn't be treated as such.

That's because I don't indulge in meaningless fantasies anymore. My opinion is formed solely on what I see. If Nintendo's conference was aimless, confusing, and muddy, and if further details separate from the conference don't instill confidence in the console's capabilities, my initial impression is not good. I'm not passing a FINAL judgement, mind you. I probably won't pass final judgement until I actually see the console for myself and spend a good amount of time on it, but I'm talking about these impressions I'm having right now and my feeling the console isn't doing what I think is supposed to. That's it. *sigh* Again, indulging in fantasies is not something I do with Nintendo. I did with the Wii and was burned horribly by it. At this point I only go by what Nintendo's telling me, period. If they can't sell their newfangled console to me properly without me thinking it's horribly gimped, they've done something wrong. Most of your excitement seems to come just from hypotheticals about what COULD happen, and I know Nintendo all too well to assume that they'll all happen. I'm not going to be excited for potential, I'm going to get excited for cold, hard games sitting on the shelves that actually use the console in ways that they promised. Anything less than that is empty promises, and any fantasies I'd cook up will be childish daydreaming.

I think the issue with this though is that they're SPECIFICALLY going out of their way to pull games out of specific platforms just because they're making their own distribution system. You don't see a 360/PS3 multiplatform game discontinuing the 360 version and pulling all copies off the shelves just because they suddenly decided to make it a PS3 exclusive.

I saw it too and I liked what I saw, but I most definitely DON'T like Bethesda's attitude of "So what? It'll be a console port. Got a problem with that?" It's obvious the game won't do a single thing that the consoles aren't capable of doing, even in the PC version. I expect low draw distances, continuing to divide the game world into "cells", and two-line conversations. Funnily enough, my attitude would also be "So what? It'll be a console port. Got a problem with that?" because of all the temper tantrums PC people throw on the Internet. It's partly why I think Rockstar stopped putting games on PC; it's a pain in the ass to deal with the PC crowd. Rockstar stopped putting games on PC because they don't know what the fuck they're doing, not because they're dealing with "impossible" fans (if your definition of "pain in the ass" is "make a port that doesn't suck balls", then yes, it's an extreme pain in the ass).