WTF

I think you're getting confused with third birthday. That started out as a phone game. This was always meant to be part of the Fabula Nova blahblahblah series. However last year they had a change of heart and wanted to make this a series on its own and thus we got type 0. But yes it's been in conceptual stage since 2005.

Honestly in Civ 5, Space Race victory is far too easy. I acheived it in first go. They rebalanced it so that Space Race is easier to acheive. I remember feeling great when i got it in Civ5 since that's my goal with each Civ, however everyone who's played any civ gets it with ease. In this one cultural victories are harder to an extent. On another note, Finished LA Noir DLC and SOTD in Hard (Legion Hunter) mode. Now to finish off in easy mode after a few weeks. edit: and to finish off in normal mode as well.

Technically everyone I know makes tea 'wrong' and that includes several people in the UK as well. All you teabag using people. For shame! Making tea, at least in my family is treated like an art. Maybe it's cause a part of my family comes from plantation owners... If I weren't concerned about my identity I'd gladly invite you over for a cuppa.

Dean you lurk far too much on Neogaf even the thread titles bear similarities. But generally it's a stupid thing. The issue isn't game length really, it's filling a game with fluff. If you look at the previous gen a lot of games required grinding which essentially increased the length of the game. Sidequests were not primed a lot in at least 80% of the games and it was just oh god get it over with. Games were just using fillers to increase their length. If a game is long but doesn't feel long and is actually good there's no issue. The reason why some 'gamers' might complain about length is well fetch quests, trail quests and a lot of pointless faff which developers add just to increase the length of the game. if done well people don't complain. e.g. Resident Evil 4 was about 20 hours long. That's pretty long for an action adventure title. Did most people complain? No not really. In fact it's one of the best loved games in the series. Did it feel like it went on forever? Not really. A good game with decent length is always good. But a bad game that just uses fluff to increase it's length is just rubbish and doing it no favours and likewise a good game with terrible side quests. Very few games have core stories that go beyond 10 hours and it's the truth particularly in this generation. I guess games like RE4, God of War 2 and some RPGs are an exception. But really most open world games are the biggest culprits when it comes to crap side quests. You don't need to fill it with crap to extend the length just give interesting long side missions. It's fine if they are fewer just stop cookie cuttering a dumbass formula. Of course it means budgets can be inflated but it always be DLC.

Isn't it kind of weird, how some people go watch a movie just to see the trailer? It's kind of like the people who watch a movie just because "such-and-such actor/actress is hot". It's normal these days. It's like people who go to conventions just to hear about one particular film or comic. Companies know that fans can do the PR themselves and they can make money in the process. It's a thing now and helps reduce the budget.

I'm sticking with my £20 augmented edition and/or £30 collector's edition (with the figure) [the latter should be fine] Anyways Deals head over to impulse today for deals on Black Mirror 3 (£6.18 is what it shows up for me though it could be 6.99 for some, refresh a bit; normally 19.99) Drakensang for £1.69 Lead and Gold for £1.49 (steam redeemable).

I agree. That does bug me. Another thing that somewhat bugs me is when people think that consoles use the same components that are commercially available for purchase on PCs when they're not. Especially when you talk about GPUs. There's a lot of difference in form factor, chipset and the like. It's not a consumer graphics card goddamit.

Windows 8 will be a bit later than this year. The end of this fiscal year is the target but for once they are thinking of streamlining their business. MS has always had various departments pretty much at war with each other. It's always how it's been at MS and I'm saying this having several friends who work there and owning some stock. Like I keep saying MS will be the last to release the new console. Firstly their console has hit the stride in the US and is currently outselling the others by a huge margin in the US. One thing that people forget is that a console is big and important in the home market. For Microsoft it's the US and right now thanks to Kinect and the $100 discount vouchers it sold 507k in June which is ridiculous. Of course it'll go down in July but they've managed sustained growth. They are not going to release a core console till late 2013 at the earliest. They want to capitalise on the party console nature. Sony pretty much works on the whole futureproofing aspect of their tech. Right now they are looking into Head mounted displays and VR and moving the shift away from 3D because they know it's possible to get those. It also means they're focussing on holo-displays which they're trying to work at with their 360 degree display as is. For instance Blu-ray is catching on. You know all that digital download revenue that studios thought they could capitalise on? Well it's declining and declining sharp. It's mostly because of streaming films that are available from rental companies. On demand is competing with Digital Download distribution and winning (mostly because of capped download limits in a lot of areas). Meanwhile Blu-Rays are slowly and surely getting there. Not to mention a lot of Blu-Rays exist without region protection these days as well (plus of course the fact that prices are going down. I saw a decent Blu Ray print of let the right one in going for 3.99 quid). Anyways getting to the point they like to future proof. Right now they're testing 4k technology. Honestly we are far far away from giving 4K resolution in homes while cinemas are just adjusting to 8K and above (it's a slow shift) but there's tech that exists to make this easily viable. Now you may ask what's the point of 4K. The biggest thing to tell a layperson is that if you were to zoom into an image captured at 4k you can get even the smallest of details. It's of great use when filming and editing. In terms of gaming it'll change the whole line of sight aspect not to mention output in much crisper form. However you will need a big enough screen to take advantage of that. But that's hypothetical for now since it's still not a home viable solution. As for the WiiU, it's like what happened with the Wii. The point that TN brings about in terms of semantics is moot since the 8th generation begins when the next console comes out and the WiiU whether it be a stop gap graphically or not is still the 8th Generation. It's like saying your clone given birth through via your wife's egg is entirely identical to you and thus must be your generation when it clearly wouldn't be. (Plus similar to the clone, a stop-gap has a reduced life expectancy). However one thing people don't seem to realise is that 3rd Parties western developers aren't really finding success with Nintendo. Look at all the games that were coming up that got cancelled or shifted. For instance the concept of Assassin's creed 3DS is now what we have in Assassin's Creed Revelations, titles like My garden were cancelled. For third party developers the WiiU will not hold them back because they know that people buy Nintendo consoles primarily to play Nintendo games and market tastes have changed as well. This is not the generation where titles like Killer7 or the like would flourish unless it's sold via Atlus' marketing department (who are very good at their job and manage to sell a game like 3D dot game heroes which failed in Japan to 3-4 times that amount in the US). Third party developers would port their games on the WiiU but if people don't buy them which seems to happen often enough, they'll just stop focussing on them. Nintendo has found itself in a very odd position right now. Third party games aren't selling well on their platform. Titles like NMH did ok and honestly wouldn't have done any better on the HD twins or the PC because those are niche titles. However with a few exceptions such as Rhythm games and some CoD/Golden Eye and the like didn't do too well. Nowadays people mostly just buy Nintendo games on the console and few special titles that are marketed to specific niche groups. It's mostly because people who buy the console want to buy Nintendo games and the ones that would have bought every third party title there know that they perform better (as a game) usually on the other platforms they're available on. Microsoft might find itself in that position if it carries on with the kinect. Yes there's Live and some 3rd party games are better but that margin is decreasing steadily and the only reason for owning one are the XBLA titles. All PSN needs to do is focus on the little developers while MS focuses on kinect (we know Nintendo's stance when it comes to what they believe are very small-sized teams which is odd considering some really fun games were made by small teams - Magicka (7 people), Joe Danger (5 people), etc) and they can even that out. I'd say MS should see the trends from Nintendo on what happens when it focusses for the casual market for too long and thus will not wait till late 2014 to release a console. Whereas Sony has learnt from its mistakes and will be aiming to release a console that costs between $299 and $399 and if they can continue to learn we as gamers should benefit. All in all, the next generation will be incredibly interesting. Not to mention there's some real interesting rumblings on the hardware side. Edit: I think we need a split bump on this thread since we're really talking about the next generation. Split and put it in the general gaming thread. Or combine the next Xbox thread with threads on this topic . I mean really we'll end up 3 topics once we get rumblings for PS4.

I wouldn't call it a trailer as much as a teaser, but yes that's been done for a fair bit now and should be online once HP cools a little bit. They want more people to watch HP which is the reason for adding the trailer to it of course.

I know. This is an awesome game and I'd recommend it as well. My friend bought it and has been raving about it. I will buy it eventually. Just lol I need to stop purchasing stuff this week -.-

Well there's a bigger difference to MS rushing the console that time to presently. In all honesty Microsoft should most likely be the last company to release the new system. In terms of console releases I'll try to simplify it. Nintendo always caters to the home crowd i.e. the Japanese market. Now wii sales have seriously declined out there and some weeks this year it was selling under 10k which wasn't good for Nintendo. Software on the wii is also starting to sell less. Titles like Pandora's tower opened ok and then died. Earth seeker was pretty much dead. The wii for all intents and purposes is mostly a console on it's last legs which was the reason they were forced to announce the WiiU. Honestly they would have liked to wait it out a few more years but market changes prevented them from staying on. Wii sales have declined in the US as well.It is selling but the 360 is outselling. They were not ready to announce the new console. I believe they wanted to announce it at TGS. But someone leaked info about the WiiU which forced Nintendo to act quickly and this time they were unable to hide. Normally they're very good at sorting out corporate leaks but this must have been an unexpected source. They are still looking to release it in FY2012 which according to some means it'll hit summer 2012. I get the feeling that they'll delay for a fall release in order to build up for Christmas. October seems like a good month. SCE and MSXbox division aren't really concerned about the WiiU. The 360 is selling well thanks to renewed life from the kinect and the PS3 is still on its 10 year lifecycle and there's not a huge generational gap between them and the WiiU that it could hurt them. Lets take Sony's case first. Right now they're working on the release of the Vita. They've been working on the Vita since before the release of the Go and their aim was to make a handheld console that was $249.99. All the while they would deny that it was under development. They have a huge R&D department and they're already actively working on finding the right price-build for their next console. Vita is in PR and marketing phase and the PS4 is most likely on the halfway mark of the development phase. They would not have to speed up to release their new console. If they are going by their 10 year plan which they did with the PS2, we need to remember that the PS3 was released about 6 years after the release of the PS2. If everything goes according to keikaku then we should see the PS4 coming out sometime in 2013 which wouldn't be too far away from the 2012 release date of the WiiU. I believe they are probably the most strongly placed to release a new console in the marketplace that's highly competitive because they haven't said anything and we're only going to hear about this post Vita launch. They wouldn't be hurrying it. In the case of Microsoft, whether we like it or not they will be trying to milk the Kinect first and right now they are profitable and selling quite well. The last time they hurried to release one because the Xbox wasn't selling as much as they wanted and they needed the new console out even before the original one was hitting its stride. A lot of resource allocation had to have been done at the time to make that switch. Currently Microsoft would like to streamline their OS so we will see the the next Xbox OS to be quite similar to the next windows and I'd bet that we'll see Windows8 launching roughly 6-9 months before the next Xbox which should most likely hit late 2013 at the very earliest. 2014 seems to me the most likely bet with them. I can't say how releasing last will help them so if Sony announces something at 2012 or they get wind of that they'll do the same. No one wants to be left behind. Right now it's a game of chicken between MS and Sony on who's going to announce when. By 2014 we'll have all three next generation consoles and the 8th generation will hit full swing. One thing to note is that whoever is the market leader in console terms leads the dominance in terms of games. Personally I'd prefer it to be a tiny Sony lead unless Nintendo gets back to how it was in the early 90s because of the variety of games we had during the PS2 generation and the SNES, Sup Famicom generation. The 360 dominates in the US is why we have far too many shooters, it would be nice to see what happens when games from Palzone actually make a bigger difference outside of the PCsphere.

Funny enough FLD. I started out with a computer science and engineering degree before switching to advertising straight out of uni (the first time) and eventually ended up working in broadcast and film. I will say that try to get into working on edit software (make sure you learn to grade (colour correct as to suit the tone/mood of the film) on your own, pays ridiculously well) and as many different types of cameras as possible. Cheaper DSLRs such as the 550D/T2i (it's cheap but it's something to begin with and it is similar to the 7D but not quite as good. But cheap) are great to begin with these days and cheaper too compared to buying proper equipment. Anything is possible, if you set your mind to it . On topic. yeah the batcopter sequences are quite stunning I must say. I've seen a few takes. Can't say if those are in the final since it's the second crew. However it's still early and plans for post-pro can change but Nolan is usually good with time. As for John Carter, it's being done ok and well visually it's still not finished. Lots of work left but they're running on a tight schedule now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sntZr3VmmJU

Activision has COD+ for now but we'll see something coming soon probably similar to Battle.Net since they have it working nice and fine for PCs. Squeenix well Eidos could come up with something when they make more MP focussed bigger budget games. Capcom is bound to get in with this as well. I bet we could see something in sf vs tekken. Maybe Namco but unlikely. Most western devs are going to get in on this.

I didn't realize that. So they're even more biased. As far as the Wii U being stop-gap, I don't think Nintendo sees it that way. It seems more like Nintendo is just continuing the 5 year console cycle whereas the Sony and MS have decided to stretch this generation out further than normal. Really, I can understand why simply judging from the cost of high end hardware. PS3 was $600 for a reason when it was released and neither Sony or MS have the slightest desire to repeat that debacle. I don't think they're going to sit idle and not release a new machine. We'll see the WiiU sometime in 2012 and the next Xbox and PS consoles sometime in 2013. PC gaming is moving at a pretty fast pace and if you look at both companies they're not really announcing a lot of games for 2012. Yes there will be games for 2012 but we knew of at least a few titles for 2011 by this time in 2010. That and all the other rumours, yeah a new console is almost definitely going to arrive sometime in early 2013. Vita will be Sony's focus till release and that should happen late 2011 early 2012 and at E3 we'll hear rumblings for the next gen. Nintendo's console is a stop gap because honestly they don't want to spend a lot on it and I mean look at the console's body it's really small. It's probably going to be quite medium to low-high 2011 PC comparable specced unless someone makes a really efficiently cooled system. What we currently know of it puts it above the current gen but not enough to be on par with whatever comes next gen. It's good that nintendo made the first move regardless since that means we'll have a new generation faster than before.

same thing as project 10 dollar. Uplay is the portal they use to activate their online only pass. It's really stupid. The code comes with new copies of the game.

Gamescom. Sony treats that event properly. That and TGS. They're doing these announcements in phases the way I see it. Also Naughty Dog is a 1st party developer. They were bought by SCE back in 2001. So they're a wholly owned subsidiary. Ice Team which is pretty much one of their internal tech divisions is a sub-group of ND. If my memory serves me right ND is part of WWS which is part of SCEI. 2001 was when they knew they had to buy ND and own the ips from Insomniac after they lost both Crash and Spyro to Vivendi-Universal (before the whole Activision consolidation-merger). As for the WiiU it does seem like a stop-gap console since there's quite a few things that aren't exactly going its way and the specs are not final. So people are at liberty to give them the benefit of the doubt or rag at them. It was a bit stupid to announce it at E3. TGS or an investor's conference would have been better followed by E3 next year. Also Jim Sterling... I thought the lack of Multitouch was common knowledge and was something some people were pissed off about?

While on topic, Ubisoft is implementing the same via it's existing Uplay service starting with the Driver game coming up in September.

Bah. Roads. Try living in cities that were badly planned despite them having ample opportunity to plan them right. Most roads are fine when compared to that. Or places where corruption prevents road improvements from taking place faster. As for roundabouts yeah TN is on the dot about how it is here. Speaking of roads we call them flyovers here while you call them overpasses, though bigger overpasses are called flyovers if i recall my terminology correctly. Grade separations like what you've shown in that image are always tricky and better implemented in cities in deserts, with a lot of arid waste spaces or modern cities that have made for such planning.

lol. No. Actually I work in the industry and have a lot of very well placed friends. Any film that Nolan does is pretty easy to source info since some of my close acquaintances from the British Film Industry are involved in his productions. He likes to keep the same staff. Also one of his go to post pro houses is D-Neg and I know a few people working there. Speaking of D-Neg and not trying to derail what's the view on the John Carter trailer since I've been aware of the post pro on it for quite a while now (it's much more FX intensive and is set for Spring 2012, early Spring most likely).

Sod off? lol . Well technically yes that's where it comes from. 'There's the door, get lost' I think was what it was originally intended for before it was replaced by kinder phrases and now this is just well what it is. On the subject of language here's something interesting. Beta is pronounced Bayta in US English, Beeta out here, Vuyta in modern Greek and they're all different from how ancient Greeks used the letter β. Time changes things interestingly and in the end we're all wrong XD.

All I can say is, the movie is so far turning out well. That is all. Post Pro starts mostly in November.

Age of Zombies on any platform is good. PSN minis, iOS, Android. whatever. I'd recommend it. Dead Space on the iOS is also good. I've got a lot of iOS titles that are decent should post some recommendations. Civ Rev is good for it. Ash is an ok rpg as is chaos rings. Game Dev Story is always fun. Wait for 2. Oregon trail is oregon trail. Flying Hamster. Moviecat is fun as is 7words. A lot of popcap games are the same old. Prosewithbros is quite fun.