RockyRan

Been trying to play the Witcher 1 again and I'm back to being bored (had to start over because I lost my save). So I finished the godawful first act and I just started Act II. I've heard horrible things about a so-called swamp, yet don't hear that much about Act I, which I hated (liked the story, hated everything else). Leads me to believe the swamp is "worse" than the first Act, in which case I can only foresee this ending in a keyboard-through-monitor scenario. I do have to say, though, so many people (including me) feel compelled to keep playing a game I obviously am not enjoying, with the promise of a proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in the form of a game that's actually good. I'm not trying to knock on the game, though, it does look like it has plenty of potential and I'm not going to deny all the calls that the game is awesome. Still, the general consensus is that the first few hours range from "tolerable" to "oh god, someone kill me". I'm seeing a pretty high amount of people saying the same kind of things: they're "trying" to play through the game, usually talk about how they're "forcing themselves" to play through the first couple of acts, and oddly enough many of them talk about something along the lines of the game draining their will to keep going. I'm like, damn this is some SERIOUS barrier of entry here. I feel that if this were your generic regular-Joe game that'd be a damnable enough "gaming sin" to condemn it for all eternity and be universally disliked, but for some reason that's not the case with the Witcher. Again, it's probably the promise that the game gets better and the fact that at the end of the day people think the game is awesome. Witcher 2 being on the horizon probably helps that as well. I dunno, it's strange. Lots of people, including myself, are very VERY forgiving of a game with several hours of mind-crushing boringness because we keep hearing it gets better. I'll keep going largely because I hate spending money on games that I never finish (and that alone will probably drive me to play through the infamous parts), but I've never really seen or been part of a phenomenon like this.

Personally I think Jim Sterling is by far the worst gaming "journalist" in the entire industry. The fact that he's jumping on the bandwagon isn't surprising to me in the least bit.

Exactly. I have absolutely no idea why people just automatically assume that the security was sub-par. I don't see any evidence that suggests this. Either way, gaming journalism in general has sunk to a new low with this. Pretty much every journalist out there is jumping on the "irrational bashing of Sony" bandwagon just because it's getting them more pageviews. You'll be hard pressed to find any site that's updating this story without any snarky sarcasm, and there's plenty of occasions when they flat out lie or just pull stuff out of their ass. And this is separate from all the half-witted "editorial" pieces that bash Sony based on pure conjecture, complete with lapses in logic so large it amazes me they were even able to write their rants with any kind of serious tone. It's like everybody collectively made up their mind that this entire thing is Sony's fault, and Sony's response and their attempts to fix it, no matter what it is, will never be good enough to them. They've already made up their mind that Sony's security and response was and will be "sub-par" and regardless of what happens they'll find any way to support their preconceived notion. That's at least what it looks like to me looking in. It's this behavior that confirms suspicion that "gaming journalism" is considered a joke. When they can't report on something that's actually a serious issue and not a shiny new game or hardware with any kind of professional integrity, it's really obvious to see their lack of maturity and ability to function as a proper "journalist". No offense directed at our Excaliburps of course

Uh, you are aware that this is actually a huge deal, right? When 77 million people are compromised of their private information, it's no longer a small mentionable at the bottom of page A8 of the newspaper. Not when the FBI, the FTC, and Canadian and British organizations are looking into the matter. I'm not suggesting for people to sweep it under the rug. I'm suggesting "journalists" need to report on this without resorting to childish "let's bash on Sony" parades just because it's the popular thing to do at the moment.

Uh, yes they have? Show it to me, then. Huh. So they didn't. I was thinking of SOE's statement.

I find it kind of amusing the "journalists" of the industry collectively decided to start using Sony as a punching bag. I guess they started noticing bashing on Sony for this got a few sites a bunch of hits they all wanted in on it. Nice to see Kotaku being part of the sheeple collective. >_>b

Uh, yes they have?

Because you're a bit of a pessimist? I dunno, I can kind of see it coming. Lord knows how many times sci-fi stories end up with a "OMG [insert species X or event Y here] TOTALLY EXPLAINS THE ORIGINS OF MANKIND!!!!!" twists. Mass Effect is far from generic, but they've known to put some horribly cliched stuff in there.

See, I actually kind of like this, because it means I can run everything on highest detail settings at 1920x1080 with 16xQ CSAA and 16x AF. I loves me some antialiasing and filtering. That is true. It's the very nice silver lining that I can't deny

Played through Magicka with my bro over the course of a couple of weekends, and it was definitely something unique. We can't shake the feeling that it could've been so much more, though. The last 3rd or so of the game was a complete disaster, with a severe lack of variety in the level design and the constant spamming of stronger monsters to create a false illusion of a higher difficulty, not to mention a considerable increase in bugs. It was at this point that all the little quirks and tiny inconveniences of the bugs were exacerbated. The game arbitrarily decided that you had to be far more precise and observant, yet the controls and basic gameplay mechanics weren't really built at all for precision playing. Plus, the lack of any "down time" in the game really took its toll on the both of us as we continued through to the end. Hallways of monster spamming got really tiring really quick. Still, though, very unique. We loved the magic elements and the combinations (as did everyone else who's played the game ), and the first 2/3rds were really fun. We haven't tried the challenge maps but if they're mostly more monster spamming I doubt we'll want to delve into that anytime soon.

I'm excited for a new generation of hardware, not because I want to buy a new console anytime soon (god no), but because at the very least we'll get a better class of shitty console ports on the PC. It's really quite a shame that a vast majority of PC gamers can't even use their hardware properly because most games they're playing on it are still optimized for hardware from 2005. And considering the industry's collective circle jerking around consoles in recent years, there's no chance in hell we'll get a good amount of software optimized well for modern hardware unless the Console Overlords deem it so.

Apparently some people around the net are reporting fraudulent charges with cards that were linked to the PSN store. Turning on my Bullshit Trolling Filter (patent pending) it looks like at least a couple of these claims are legit. Difficult to say, though, the damned thing craps out every other day. Sony's definitely going to have to pull some PR skillz to get people calmed down, but then again PR hasn't exactly been Sony's forte since, well...ever. I guess at least this is another reminder of the risk you run when putting info online. Any online system is open to attack to some degree or another, no matter what service we're talking about. And this should be a message that speaks to ALL gamers out there, including those smug dipshits taking this opportunity to loudly declare that their XBOX Live fee is suddenly all the more justified, as if requiring consumers to throw money at a network infrastructure makes it magically immune to every conceivable attack by some arbitrary measure.

This wouldn't be "deviating from the model", this is just them back to their old ways. The hardware's power is competitive, but then again the NES, SNES, N64, and GC were all graphically competitive for their time. And they're not just shoehorning super expensive tech on it, they're making some quirky twist to it, as with all the other consoles they've made. I'm looking at this and if the rumors are true, I honestly don't see what makes this any different from their old consoles. I have no idea why so many people think Nintendo's approach with the Wii was the approach they've been doing since the NES. It isn't.

Because that tactic wasn't really sustainable. They can't keep selling the Wii's novelty to non-gamers forever, they have to eventually revert back to the people who've supported the industry for decades. Sure, the low-cost console tactic worked. Once. Doesn't mean it's going to work automatically in the future, and if Nintendo's smart they're not going to do the same thing again.

You're not "staring at a controller", but rather looking at a screen. Besides, the only reason why nobody looks at their controller is that there's nothing to look AT. Stick a screen in there and I'm sure people would look at it. It's not like looking down at a controller occasionally is going to give anyone eye herpes.

I was thinking it was going to be a whole different screen, complementary to the TV's output. Like a DS except the bottom screen is in your controller and the top is in the telly.

^That. Easily. As for the hardest game I've played, easily F-Zero GX. I played that damn game so much I beat all the story missions on Very Hard and all the cups on Master.

...what the hell is that?

Steam's got Metro 2033 on sale for $10: http://store.steampowered.com/app/43110/ BUT WAIT! If you buy it from GamersGate tomorrow (Apr 22) you can buy it for FIVE: http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/img/featured/w16_dealoftheday.jpg (Registers on Steam too, so woo)

True. "Graphical powerhouse" wasn't the best choice of words, as it implies they were the most powerful ones. I'd say at least they were competitive.

Yep. It's the reason why I went back to finish AC, because I'm clearing the way for AC2, which I've heard is THE SHIT.