WTF

Clash of Heroes is made by Capy the guys who made critter crunch. Basically Clash of Heroes is HoMM lite plus Critter Crunch gameplay which makes it enjoyable. But I still wouldn't pay full price for it since HOMM 6 is out in September

Tiny Heads up on tomorrow's sales Prince of Persia Franchice Hitman Franchise X Franchise Dead Space Franchise are 4 of the 12. That leaves 8 places. Don't expect too much from Dead Space 2 since the lowest Origin went for was 20 or 25 USD. However the X Superbox might be heavily discounted from the 50% off it already has.

I'm not entirely certain about PE, it seems like apart from license issues there's also compatibility issues. I mean the whole process of bring PS1 games is pretty much creating a workable ISO which is then emulated by the PSP and PS3 and some games do have some critical errors. I agree with you on the license thing. I mean that's pretty much the reason titles like Silent Hill find it harder to get published and why SE finds it hard to release FF7 and 8 on the PC despite it being ready for steam. Lapsed licenses are a headache and something I'm all to familiar with thanks to people who inherit rights and are pretty much squatters on them. I still think people who inherit rights are the worst bunch when it comes to any media release because all they want is a lot of money which hampers budget rereleases. As for region locking you're right it is the MP component that benefits the most from that venture, but it's their company and they work they want themselves to work. I'm not even going to comment on Multiplayer and the WiiU since it sounds like a clusterfuck waiting to happen but it's still vague right now. So they can have the benefit of the doubt.

So GMG are giving away three games via the SUN. Now you don't need to buy that tripe to buy those games. Just head to green man gaming and add the game with the relevant code and voila there you go free game. It's applicable regardless where you are. For ARMA 2 the code is THESU-NFREE-ARMA2 For Men of War the code is THESU-NFREE-MOFW2 For Tower Bloxx Deluxe the code is THESU-NFREE-BLOXX Notes: You need to buy them individually. I got Arma 2 and MoW earlier today when few people heard about it, but the site might be getting hammered now if HUKD managed to get their grubby hands on it...

Well they should but they don't. In fact I'd agree a 100% to drop region locking because it generates overall sales which technically does help a conglomerate that's on a pyramid model or something with a financial base. The thing is I'm pretty sure that Nintendo knows that people can softmod their consoles and in fact they must be looking at fora to see what the general reaction is. If you look at them, you'd see majority says NoE is awesome and NoA sucks, I'm importing from NoE. At the end of the day, they are still getting the revenue. I've read a lot of responses on this matter and generally the responses range from 1) I'm importing this after softmodding my wii 2) I'm buying the game and playing on my Dolphin EMU 3) How much does it cost to buy a PAL Wii (which quickly gets corrected) Even people in Op Rainfall are importing the game. All that means is that they'll think about making the Wii U region free. I believe they're doing some sort of experiment to see how it works. I'm sure Sony has seen some benefits to games being region free which is why they're continuing at that angle with the PSV (leaving it up the publishers to decide to region-lock). In fact I'm pretty sure that if they see a significant increase in sales in the game for the EU region we might actually see them thinking about region-free. However the fact that they have localisation measures in place today means they probably would still enforce region locking. And yeah their model would be to limit distribution for the current situation. I think we might see a change in localisation policies based on whatever happens with these 3 games. it is quite possible though that does mean some people are going to lose jobs. On a positive note, markets change, attitudes change and this is just something for today. It is in no way permanent. The advantage to this system is that when we hit 2 generations from now when these games will get re-released there wouldn't be a lot of publisher issues in getting the game rereleased provided the current version can be made future compatible (I think the reason why PAL hasn't got Parasite Eve 1 is probably to do with technical issues of converting an NTSC PS1 game for PAL compatibility, issues like that should be next to non-existant today I mean a PS3 game in one region should be playable across multple regions of PS5s [side note: At least the modding community makes it easier when it comes to older PC games])

Two words: Exchange Rate The Yen is strong, the dollar is weak. NCL dictates which games can come out in the other territories. We all know that Xenoblade, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower aren't going to sell a lot. I mean it's probably going to sell about a bit more than Sin and Punishment: Star Successor. We can talk about exclusivity and all that rubbish but honestly the main reason for this is, it's just not worth the effort for them financially. NCL is most likely responsible for NOA and NOE funding (I have no proof since I haven't studied their corporate hierarchy, but it seems quite likely since the two are subsidiaries). Now Nintendo localises games for every region even if the language spoken is in fact English. This can be witnessed in a lot of recent games. Here's a good example --> In Epic Yarn Kirby tells 'hey this feels like pants' in the US version and in the PAL Eng version he says 'This feels like trousers' . If NoA were to bring these games, they would localise it once again for the US, this has to do with Nintendo Corporate Policy. It makes sense if it was applied on a case by case basis, however it's a sweeping way they approach localisation today. A lot of Nintendo's core users are not heavy gaming enthusiasts, I mean Nintendo Brands that are existing would sell a lot better than 3 new ips which are mostly dedicated to a JRPG audience. But the biggest thing is the exchange rate, it's simply not profitable for a company who's losing revenue because of international sales thanks to the strong yen to keep investing in niche titles. The EUR and GBP have a sort of favourable rate when compared to the JPY and the games are sold at a higher price here anyway when compared to the US so the risk is less. Oh and you know what, the from the Nintendo France's marketing side of NOE who tried to announce this game at E3 has quietly left the company after 12 years. Oh he quietly leaves after 12 years after bringing these 3 games to the west. It says something about corporate policy. Now as a consumer I'm against these policies but as a businessperson I'd be fine with this and think it's actually smarter. Sure there's backlash and everything but you're unlikely to see Nintendo Published niche titles to come out in the US for a while now unless it's concurrent with a product launch. It's just one of things that happens in such financial structures. We may not like it but they're doing it to cut losses. And no under 100k sales would not be worth it for them because of their silly localisation policies. Final Notes: I bet the sales of Pandora's Tower would be about the same as Fragile Dreams. Also on an unrelated note, Shenmue for Sega would be equally unprofitable which is why it's unlikely 3 will ever come out until there's a remake/re-release.

@ Strangelove you guys were lucky that there were excess copies out there. In Palzone it was quite limited and I think most of EU didn't get it outside of the UK aaand it got sold out within 3 days unlike the Killzone 3 one. I bought that one for the bag myself, it's decent for DSLR equipment lugging and I like the fact that it's mostly waterproof considering hey guess what it's raining in London XD. On the topic of purchases I bought GTA4 complete and sold my console versions for 4 times what I paid for the complete version.

It's mostly because he's a brand. Otherwise story twists can be modified. I mean seriously the only thing confirmed when brands goes for funding is the logline and the treatment is just usually an extended version of that. I mean you get rewrites quite often and though it seems to be extremely central these twists sometimes get written out or changed for other twists. I mean when you're forced to read a lot of shitty scripts (worked as a script reader for a few months) you get to see how much actually gets changed storywise even in second/third draft stage. Of course it depends on other factors too, but you can't say it's at script stage. It's at decision stage since someone obviously approves of it. There are many good ones forced into rewrite and bad ones just kept for various reasons.

Don't forget to check out the sales at D2D as well. There might be a few decent deals there too. (31 days of deals for them. so far it's been so-so). Also if you're willing to mod and mess around a bit, I can recommend Alpha Protocol. Sure it has bugs, it has other issues and yes it is an obsidian game but I played the game sometime during Christmas and enjoyed it. First on the PS3 and then on the PC. Yes it is buggy and it was reviewed terribly but I guess I went in with zero expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I could say it's worth the £3 considering I paid £7 and free for my versions. I already have it on the PC outside of steam is why I'm not buying it.

Portal 2 on SP and Co-Op.

See that's the thing. The projects get approved based on initial treatment. It's not the script and not even the concept that gets the approval. I mean come on there's so many films that basically have the same concepts. It's in execution that they differ. It's not his 'concepts' nor is it his 'scripts' because it's the producer/studio's job to basically approve of the scripts before they go for filming where it gets changed some more. What I was clearly referring to was the fact that before you have the final draft of the script there's many versions and the way his films go just means that someone's not doing the intermediate phase right or just approving since he's a brand.

I have seen many many films since 2007 (due to my career) but the one that touched me the most in the past 4 years was Le scaphandre et le papillon aka the diving bell and the butterfly. In all aspects, it was a well made film in performance, direction and cinematography (while it may not be breathtaking cinematography done to tell a story is important - man I hate it when they just use shots that have no meaning like did in atonement. tolerable in a blockbuster pulp film but not in a film like that made for such a purpose). 2007-8 was a good period for cinema. Jesse James, this one, there will be blood, the class, no country for old men. hunger, unc maymun, etc 2011 was good at Cannes after 2 years of whatever honestly. Man I should've responded to you earlier HH but yes it was planned later but it was planned out mostly in the 80s. Some of it existed before too though. A lot of it though sometime in the 80s. Shymalan's problems start post the script stage, if you think people film the scripts then it's wrong. it's mostly cause there's a good concept and the script is done alright but then they don't do enough redrafts. I mean just think what we'd have had, had they stuck to the original usual suspects script. Here's a hint. It was fucking awful. I've read the original ones and they were just pretty bad. I mean you can see there was good stuff but if they went with those, no way would it have been any good. Memento's similar.

SSDs are fine when it's for a singular purpose. For instance if you are planning to get an SSD just use as a C drive or just use it your steam folder. Multiple types of uses, transferring files and the like wear it down. I do get SSDs but they're mostly as HDDs for F3s and REDs. I have one for my computer but it usually serves as a steamapps location. I just do that since I want all my games on a nice little drive that's fast since I don't like to redownload when I format and prefer it on a nice tiny drive of 256GB or so. But here's the most important thing to realise about SSDs most manufacturers cut costs on the NAND chips and thus this results in failure. If you are buying an SSD you should prepare to shell out a bit and not buy the cheapest.Most SSd manufacturers do tend to skimp out and so people can get life expectancies of below 9 months. The number of SSDs dying from good brands is a smaller percentage. However there will be wear and tear as with any physical medium. It is to be expected. Here's a presentation given by Micron to give you an idea about the practices in the industry --> http://www.micron.co...?documentId=255 I'd recommend an Intel one since they've the best reliability if you are getting one that is. The reliability of an SSD(from a good manufacturer) is still marginally better than that of a 1TB+HDD. Edited to add: Currently I would suggest just going with a regular hard drive as space might be your concern as opposed to speed when you factor in costs. Also edited in, new SSDs are set to be released in Fall which are of a higher storage. Wait to see how those turn out.

Yup I meant Apocalypse. lol but yeah it's 17.85. My link goes to the right game anyways

I could've sworn we had a thread on this before... Anyways I play bass when I jam with friends (haven't done so in about a year). Played a JS2CH regular. I'm looking to get this sometime in the next 12-15 months if I can get a factory discount by reconnecting with an old contact -.- I've learnt the piano, can play the keyboard, learnt to play drums as well. Music lessons always conflicted with tap dancing classes... I don't play professionally but I can still jam with friends. Every tiny band I've been has always broken up due to people literally having to move between countries. These days if I do work on sound it's just on the engineering side for post-pro work on films. AMS Neve with Protools = Bliss (if you're into it of course).

For you UK/EU folks. I know zavvi is terrible with delivery for many, but if you want to take a gamble - MS: Pacific Rift has hit £17.85 already. Dispatched in a month (but might be a lot sooner or later, you know how they are).

The GT580 is basically what I'd say would be most likely enough for at least a couple of years. I agree with Dex and would suggest going for an SLI motherboard. See here's the thing in case in the future there's some sort of major graphical overhaul and new consoles do actually get released if you've an SLI MoBo you should be set for future upgrades. Like you might get the next 600 series card for cheap and use that as a PhysX card and use the current one as the main processing one. Regardless either way you should be able to run most games at pretty high settings with the 580. of course it's not going to be like the 590 because that's like 1.6x of the 580. However it's the same chipset the 110 architecture as the 590 (approx). The card was released in November 2010 and it's the second highest performer overall. If memory serves me right the 6970 also makes more noise during processing. The 580 generates less heat than it's bigger brother the 590. I think while 700W is fine. Go with 750-800 just to keep yourself on the safe side. It's mostly cause some cards take about 200W and right now your system with the coolers and such would probably consume 550-600W so having an excess of 200W is good for future upgrades. The most important thing to keep in mind is that this is the base computer that you are going to be using for at least 5 years and upgrading step by step. it's the best way to be since sometimes stuff gets released that's not really great. Buy a good case, something big. See if you can get a Lian Li for cheap somewhere. They make pretty good cases. Antec is alright but get something that's bigger than midtower and with a removable front. Make sure your mobo has USB 3.0 since that's getting more acceptance. The HDD is fine with a spinpoint. When it comes to a gaming mouse you might like the Logitech G400 it's the successor of a very popular mouse the MX518 and would do well for most of your gaming needs. Comes to £34 from logitech directly, you can get it cheaper elsewhere. There are razers and the like but nah. I wouldn't really say you need a dedicated sound card yet, I mean they're nice but unless you're into good sound and do some audio processing you can make do with integrated with ease.

Before I begin, I just read my post and realised that my grammar was off and I missed a lot of words in the earlier post but I was pretty tired . I'm going to say something that's definitely going to annoy people but you know what - the prime example of the PC gamer in today's world demographically is the browser gamer because believe it or not most people play their facebook games on a PC. Secondly many guys who assume all PC gamers are knowledgeable are actually young and assume that everyone maintains the level of expertise they have, when you do have time on your hands. As you grow older you realise it's not the case. I know this as a PC enthusiast and a gaming enthusiast. When people get older, many of them just do not care to game on PCs despite the games being cheaper and the fact that they do have disposable income to build good machines and twiddle with games and settings. As people get older, their tendency to play good games on the PC becomes lesser except for enthusiasts. You may take it any way you want but it's the truth. It's mostly because all they want to do with a game is just put it in and play because that's all they have the time for. Battra is right that consoles are more like PCs today but it's still very streamlined that it's not complicated. I mean the level of expertise you need to have to play games on a PC is similar to using iTunes which is considered commonplace. The gaming trend is extremely similar to the fact that as people get older, they tend to watch films at their home entertainment sets which they've paid good money for and can get near cinema experiences (not quite really, but it's close to what we had in the 90s cinemas - but you're not going to get 4k res though you can get close to cinema sound in a home setup). When you're young, you tend to go to cinemas and when you hit your mid30s to 40s you don't because there's too many things to take care of and you just don't have the time. I know that I'm an exception to this, but people like me who play a lot of games and visit the cinema regularly aren't that common. I don't think most people who argue or debate these facts on a forum get that. A lot of people here are properly gaming enthusiasts and you know what this is a tiny tiny subset of the gaming population. With the average gamer's age rising to their late 30s it's no wonder that console gaming is on the rise. You see this is the lean end of the console era when PC gaming will be more dominant than console gaming, it happens in every cycle. Most people forget that. The other thing is that not every person who plays games on the PC is aware of settings, community patches, fixing resolutions, modifying files and all that. I remember when people wanted to play NES and SNES roms because they weren't available to purchase anymore and they wanted to try them on the PC, at first it was interesting because the CPUS clocked a lot higher than the consoles and that's why emulation actually became a scene. A lot of people got the ROM dumps but most were like clueless on the best emulators till those who made them tried to make it accessible. Most people especially PC gamers today and I don't mean all of them but many PC gamers do take things for granted. People seem to have forgotten all the awesome mods in games in the past and think it's new. I remember people made games in UT via mods. There was an entire skating game in the first UT that was a mod (similar to a Tony Hawk title). PC gaming definitely does have entitlement issues by those who never really saw the whole growth. The entitlement that some people have is good, but the other entitlement is quite similar to entitlement issues that some script kiddies have about internet security. The thing is you can learn something from 'history' and learn something from being there. One thing I did learn from my first degree is that you never stop learning. I can also tell you why a lot of PC gamers from that era don't want to be bothered because they knew how it was to constantly be forced to upgrade because companies decided that hey their system is not good enough. You've no idea how stupid it feels these days when I've not had any game push my system to the limits since late 2009. I'm not going to upgrade till 2013 when they bring the next set of processors which they're set to announce in the next 12 months if my mole at Intel is honest . I'm not that old but having played games since 1983-84 gives me some odd perspective here . Like I keep saying, enthusiast gamers are a smaller bunch so we do need to stick together regardless of platforms and demand a bit more since the dev industry is what caused such a reaction amongst us. Another thing when it comes to piracy on PC platforms that was mentioned before. I wonder if in developing nations game devs were getting decent cuts via the hardware because you can't sell new games with the hardware without getting anything back that even if games were pirated they were getting something via contracts or licenses and that's no longer the case? I do feel that network gaming has changed that model. Regardless if a dev is pushing PC hardware I do believe they should get some cut from the card manufacturers since it's something that they initiated the push for (if it comes with a free game and it's for early adopters of course).

First things first.Compare parts prices from scan.co.uk or overclockers as well. Get a Blu Ray drive with DVD read/write at the very least even if it's not a Blu-Ray player because it's a handy thing to have and it's going to be useful. As for cards I'm more of an Nvidia guy and I'd recommend twin 560Tis or a 580 since the 590 is still more than half your budget. The 6970 is just an overclocked 6950 and the price is about comparable these days but personally I prefer the tesselation and Physx and you can see the difference in games like Alice. Plus I like the drivers with Nvidia more. I use an ATI 6950 on an older machine and I'm using twin 560Tis now but I'll be buying a 590 later this year. And FDS is right you don't need more than 700W unless you're on a dual card setup. However saying that I'll say it's pretty handy for some games. Also you have a spec there anyway for most games coming out for about a year and I'm sure it'll run the Crystal Engine 2 (the one that TR runs on) with high as well since I'm sure this is a 9.5-10 system for Deus Ex:HR (the earlier version of that engine) and TR's probably the better engine for a game that's actually coming out in the next 15 months. edit: edited to add that I agree with CyberRat.