RockyRan

Internet bandwagons of any kind. Hype bandwagons, hate bandwagons, meme bandwagons, they're all just a sad reminder humans can easily distill themselves down to not much more than a collection of simple-minded sheeple.

Indeed. There's no end-all be-all at the end of the day, but this helps the medium advance quite a bit. Like you said, it's quite a bit of leverage to say "NEA recognizes it".

Games are now legally recognized as Art in the US: http://nohighscores.com/games_are_art EAT IT EBERT. EAT IT.

Todd Brakke from No High Scores: http://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=ubrakto XD Does go along with the general opinion for sure.

As long as this is nothing like the piece of shit that was X3 it'll be all good.

That's literally a repeat of what they said before. Note they're not saying "basic functionality" (PSN, etc.), they're saying "FULL functionality", which they had already said was going to be restored by the end of the month. This bit of info isn't anything we hadn't seen before.

Question: In case SCEA pulls a dick move and gives a far worse compensation, do you reckon US folks would be able to use an EU-based PSN account to reap the goodies? I have a Ye Olde British Account from a couple years ago.

This: I can't imagine anything of this scale being possible on the 360/PS3 with their current limitations. But this is just one example. One thing you have to realize is that you want an answer to a question that hasn't been asked. People can't off the top of their head come up with realistic ideas of what can be done on far more powerful hardware simply because barely anyone has actually tried to do things beyond the current generation. Even PC games are largely just console ports, apart from your odd game here and there. It's like academic research. Ask a researcher "why are you doing this? What are the real life applications of it?" and they'll tell you "who cares? I'm doing this because it can be done. The applications will come later". This is similar. Once developers have the power they'll find ways to use it. They don't waste their time wishing that they had better hardware because that's just a waste of effort. They can only do with what they have immediately. Once devs can get their hands on significantly more powerful hardware they can find better applications for their games beyond just prettier graphics (the good devs, at least), but until that day you're not going to find an answer to "what are real life applications of better hardware" because it doesn't exist. Once better hardware comes along you'll find a concrete answer to that and not a minute sooner, but that doesn't mean it's not worth upgrading the hardware because you don't have an answer to that question immediately. I highly doubt any developer thinks "I want to do this but I can't because current hardware doesn't let me do it" at ANY new generation. I don't ever recall devs saying that when they were working on the NES just before the SNES arrived, or when they were working on the SNES before the N64 arrived. Or on the N64 when the GC arrived. The hardware companies are the ones to supply the hardware first, the developers figure out effective uses AFTER, not before.

Are they talking PSN games, or retail PS3 games? Because it'd be totally sweet if it was the latter.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/06/psn-reactivation-delayed-for-further-testing-not-coming-back/ Reactivation delayed. Now to a "when it's done" timeframe I'd rage, but eh. Rebuilding an entire gaming network isn't exactly patching a game. Plus, this is happening right in the middle of everyone's finals. Probably the best possible time for this kind of thing to happen TBH.

I also like the "she's further in" sentence. Pyro, much? I love how A) this gives even more delicious and useless backstory to even the Meet the... videos and B) they even explain why they haven't updated with the last two classes EDIT: Scratch that about the Pyro. I misread that part of the comic.

Internal testing in its "final stages": http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/05/sony-psn-rebuild-complete-internal-testing-in-final-stages/ Oh, and free identity theft protection for a year: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/05/sony-to-offer-psn-users-free-identity-theft-protection-for-one-y/ And I gotta love the people still bitching. At this point they're just bitching about whatever comes first to their mind. Needless to say, if people are still bitching about how Sony's handling the situation they seriously need their heads crowbar'd out of their ass.

Of course, I'm sure there's the possibility of getting a great roommate, but the idea of getting accidentally stuck with a complete asshole is just "ugh" to me. I'm the kind of person who doesn't try doing anything that has a good chance of turning out badly, like for instance, getting a roommate.

Yous guys have made me wish I never have a roommate. Ever. Thankfully it looks like I'll spend my entire undergrad without a roommate/housemate, here's to hoping that doesn't happen in graduate school (whatever I end up doing)

Same here. I haven't even played ACII, much less Brotherhood but I'm already sick of EZIO EZIO EZIO EZIO and the same time period. I want to be able to look forward to a variety of time periods, locales, and protagonists. Despite my anticipation for playing ACII I'm not really looking forward to being stuck in the same time period with the same protagonist for 3 games in a row

Is there a place where I can get a large version of the first screenshot without the logo? That'd make a nice desktop background

Here's something that's not too good: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/04/mass-effect-3-delayed-to-adjust-mechanics-for-larger-market-opp/ "Address a far larger market opportunity". Everyone reading this should know immediately what THIS kind of PR speak means

And I'm not just talking "kinda creepy". I'm talking something that seriously creeps you out, as in it hits your personal "creep nerve". Let's keep this just with individual elements with games, not entire games. Also, let's keep this away from generic "jump scare" moments, but moments in a game that range from spine chilling to serious discomfort to just plain creepiness. And don't worry if it's something that's not MEANT to be outright scary. It can be something in a non-horror game. I'm bringing this up because I believe people have a "creep nerve", similar to a "funny bone", where something in particular "resonates" with you personally, except for that something being particularly funny for you I'm talking something particularly scary/creepy for you. I'll start off with an example of what I'm thinking of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFeK9PwgjtI This creeps me the FUCK out. The tingy, low quality of the "radio" (it actually eminates from a TV in-game) sound and the discordant nature of the "music" is pretty obvious, but it's also the fact that in-game this "song" only plays on an off-to-the-side TV in a completely trashed, collapsed, and darkened room in City 17. The image shown, as you guys probably remember, is the G-man standing on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a crow on his shoulder. Right after he adjusts his tie the TV turns itself off. And no, the TV isn't plugged into anything. Just...*shiver*. I don't know why, but this is by far the thing that creeps me out the most of any game I've played in recent memory. It's subtle enough to not make it totally obvious in its creepiness, it's completely out of the blue, and listening to the audio of it even depresses me a little bit. These kinds of sounds have always creeped me out more than anything for some reason, but I think it's the subtlety above all. Far too many horror games are over-the-top and obvious, dampening the effect for me because I already know that I should expect it.

Yeah, I think that's definitely a fair solution, but I don't think Nintendo would ever go for a multiple SKU thing. I vaguely remember back when the Wii was launched that they didn't want to "confuse consumers with multiple SKUs" or something like that with the Wii.

Exactly. If decent-sized hard drives aren't a standard for the system since day 1, very few developers are ever going to produce their games with the presence of a hard drive in mind. It's the same reason why mid-generation peripherals are never truly adopted by third party developers, because when they develop for a platform it makes little sense for them to make a game that only a fraction of their potential userbase can even buy. That's just throwing money away, and it's why Nintendo needs to have a proper storage solution now, not later. And most definitely not "never". I truly hope this rumor is false, because if it's not it goes to show how little Nintendo knows about the industry in general. They've made a couple of statements recently they're trying to take steps to ensure better relations with 3rd parties, but if you ask me it's THIS shit that kills third party support, not whether you're going to release your 1st party game on the same day.

Most likely. At this point I have absolutely no idea why they'd pick 8GB of flash memory over a proper HDD. I see absolutely no reason for doing that, unless it comes with a USB drive that lets people hook up an external HDD, which would be nice but would still cripple content through digital distribution due to the standard being those 8GB.

It might be my complete ignorance of disc storage formats, but 25 gigs? That's not possible on a DVD meant for mass consumption, is it? Also, if there's no HDD Nintendo's still got their heads stuck up their asses.

I think at this point we've moved on to a higher level of rumor, meaning the rumors are strong enough (at least from my perspective) to believe that the touchscreen-in-controller thing is real. Now it's a matter of seeing the "tactile feedback" thing on the controller, and the fact that many people are reporting the "Feel" name, whether it's a pre-release code name (Dolphin, Revolution, etc.) or the finalized name (which I doubt, given the fact that companies, Nintendo included, generally adopt a temporary name...Dolphin, Revolution, etc.) kind of gives a little more weight to the rumors. Again, this is pure conjecture. It's just that I feel (lulz) that the touchscreen on controller thing is real, partly because a whole lot of sources are now building rather strong rumors on top of that.