WTF

Who knows really. We've not seen a lot of the game to judge. I recall people seeing Batman:AA and thinking this will be a 6 or 7 rated game. In fact I personally had doubts when my friend who worked at Rocksteady showed me some footage in April of that year. But it completely surprised most people when it came out. I hope this time too the surprise is positive.

Yes it could have been that but it was misunderstood by someone who had very little knowledge of French trying to learn a dish from a French cookbook. It was just a total misunderstanding which could have arisen in a number of ways. It's nothing to do with what it really meant but rather someone just didn't know French and spread it around . There are plenty of similar issues with the versions of Moby Dick and that was written in English in the US in 1851 when the language didn't have as many differences as it does today on both sides of the Atlantic.

lol I got so caught up posting soundtracks. However you can tell a person by their handwriting unlike their avatar, Dean . Though a more feminine handwriting doesn't necessarily mean it's a good handwriting . For instance my wife has a very feminine handwriting but I write better than her when I write properly. I had a really crap system of going to various schools under different education systems. So I was never taught how to hold a pen, since back then in the British schooling system run by progressive public schools the importance wasn't on how to hold your pen but to teach them to write... Anyways I hold a pen like machine rather than normal human hands which also means if need be I can use just two-three fingers to write. I'm also ambidextrous but I write in block with my left hand and cursive with my right. Regardless it is true about the professional thing, it's not because most can't write properly it's just you don't have time to write it out neatly. I do write neatly when I'm not pressed for time. I can also use my feet to write (pick up things, etc) which freaks my wife out completely... Both my parents have very good handwriting. My mom went to a convent school and my dad went to schools that emphasized on sports. My dad writes exceptionally better than me and my mother in terms of handwriting [in terms of quality it's debatable since I've had to correct the stuff he wrote for company reports several times (when I worked under him as a teenager)]. I'm fortunate to have good handwriting but that's because we had to practice writing cursive for 4 years and were graded on it. I'd like to think I write better Sanskrit than English though.

and ending for now. Alan Wake OST. Well this track more like it. It's just too ridiculous and if you've played the game you'll know why it'll stick in your memory Shadow Dancer: The secret of Shinobi (Bonus track) I'd play this game just to play the bonus stage over and over. It was good but the bonus stage was worth it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q7045T-NF8 No More Heroes 1 had a pretty good Soundtrack. 2 was ehh? Well anyways Pleather for Breakfast was definitely fitting and fits in with what Suda's whole Punk+70s thing.

continuing on: Gerard Marino's The End Begins fits God of War 3 perfectly. In fact it is a pretty good composition. EA has always been trying different music with its sports games and NFS. NFS had a lot of interesting music throughout its course. While I personally liked the overall soundtracks of the first Hot Pursuit and Porsche Unleashed. I think this track by the Humble Brothers on HP2 was more notable for me. Especially since now they do a lot of film, TV and game music. The Katamari games have an interesting soundtrack but Katamari forever matches the game. This music if I recall correctly is from a level where you have to collect a lot of stuff and also make a pretty huge size and hence this version is quite relaxing when you play. Jesper Kyd's always been pretty good with scores though he's done an excellent job with the Assassin's Creed series. Personally I like this track as it pretty much catches the pace as you progress when the missions start.

Seems like CyberRat and I share a lot of similarities in Musical soundtracks. I noticed that Persona 3 , Red Alert and JSRF got love too. So here's a few tracks that I like: Shatter - Electronic Harvest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CnlolyeYCY Definitely a throwback to 80s electronica and kraftwerk. SMT3: Nocturne (or Lucipher's call if you were in Palzone) - Normal Battle Music (town) It's pretty much before Shoji Meguro started to do more Jazzy numbers and the whole soundtrack has a greater rock influence. The Blues of course is always there in the more recent SMT soundtracks including this one. I also like the special battle and the boss battle music tracks. Infamous had a really good soundtrack. While Working for a Nuclear Free City's SIlent Melody that ran for the credits was really good and featured in things like Top Gear. I particularly like Amon Tobin's Anything for Trish. Persona 4 had a lot of interesting musical notes. Personally while playing the game I really enjoyed this track. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRUEccOa4f0 It's more on the pop-side but fits the game's atmosphere so perfectly.

Nier was definitely underrated from a review point but was actually highly rated by those who played the game. I think Battle-realms was possibly overlooked and underrated simply because it came out at the same time as Warcraft 3. it was a pretty good game though. Sonic Colours was possibly overlooked, though reviewed better than average. Deadly Premonition maybe? Folksoul/Folklore perhaps. I do feel that to an extent Saboteur was underrated or rather overlooked because of the flaws it had. It was good though. I dunno there's so many but it depends on whether you mean underrated by reviewers or overlooked because of a glaring feature of the game?

Sorry Watermans don't do it for me very much. Much prefer Cross or Caran d'Ache. Then again like Ethan I prefer Ballpoint pens unless it's like some really important+special legal document . Besides don't girls have much better handwriting anyway? If you're truly a professional make it as illegible as possible, the worse the legibility the greater your professional importance (with a few exceptions of course). XD

I guess I'm almost most definitely now not getting the 3DS for launch since there were other important things this month that needed my money. I'm guessing it's one for the future. However I'll be attending the Billingsgate event and if it's there for cheap or they give it away for free which is unlikely (since there'll be like 2k people at the event) then I might get it. As for launch line-ups this is terrible unless you're absolutely interested in those games - which I personally never was. At least last time there was project rub and Nintendogs was actually new. I'm looking forward to paper mario and the marvelous game from the creator of muramasa on the device though. I'll just forget most rpgs and SMT games since it's region-locked and the likelihood of Atlus and Aksys games coming here are quite slim until when companies like Ghostlight decide to localise it some 4 years later.

Ah if it's Black Mask and Talia then it's quite likely they're bringing in Todd. I mean we have Black Mask, we have Mr Freeze and we have Talia. The connection is there. Of course he need not make an appearance but could be like how Freeze was in the first game.

I think we could see Jason Todd's Red Hood more likely in the game in some form or the other. I think firstly we need to realise that this game is an extension of the 90s DCAU. If it's DCAU Batman, it follows from the 90s comics, and to some extent the Justice League show of the early 2000s. The continuation via JLU might not really fit. So this is entirely out of current comic continuity, pre-crisis, post-infinite crisis and 52 and post final crisis. So a lot of characters, storylines and stuff will not be present. DCAU exists sort of like a different reality of the multiverse. However not all the of the animated films and shows exist within the same universe. Some stories can co-exist, but not all. So we are more likely to see what DC or WB wants people to see relevant as a character or scenario in today's comics. It will be Dini'sand Timm's DCAU. Characters we are likely to see definitely include Gotham City Sirens (Dini loves them) such as Poison Ivy, Harlequin, Oracle, current Batgirl (Stephanie Brown as opposed to Cassandra Cain) Huntress, Catwoman, Zatanna, etc. Amongst the male characters since Nightwing is now Batman in present continuity, they'll avoid showing Dick Grayson. We are likely to see Tim Drake as Robin possibly. Damien Wayne wouldn't exist in this continuity without another introduction and it would seem pointless to introduce him though his mother Talia is in the game. Since there's a gap between Grayson and Drake and Todd was seen as Red Hood we could see him acting as an anti-hero/psychopath in this lawless city. Fits with his MO and would fit with Strange's taunts too. Mr Freeze obviously is in voiced by Maurice LaMarche. Jack Ryder aka the creeper is already in the game and depending on when it's set we could see the creeper or we'll just see the douchebag side as Jack Ryder. We've also been told Calendar man is in though not to how far he's in the game. However to keep the story in focus we will obviously not see all of them. Oracle as always will be on intercom. We already know about Harlequin and Catwoman's presence. The villain is Strange and new character Sharpe along with Joker and a side trap of Riddler (who's still not tried to go good in DCAU as opposed to the comics). They've mentioned Two-Face being in the game. I could see Zatanna make a small appearance possibly if Dini wants to interest people in his current ongoing. We could see some of the inmates from the first game like Bane or Croc returning though they are better villains in a game sense in a more closed environment. We could see a few of the gangsters though not all since it wouldn't make total sense.

lol that was a fun list . Oh yeah I do have a question though, I'm aware that certain cultures tend to make mistakes when absorbing words from one culture but most of them do end up correcting it when they're told they're wrong. But it usually takes a cultural invasion of sorts. So does that mean for a word to mean what it used to it needs a cultural revolution? What I'm getting at is that Pulao/Pilau for the Indian fried rice dish was spelt Pilauf and pronounced that way for years and then in the last 20-30 years or so it's changed to the more Indianised Pulao or Pilau. Is it because we have more Brasians now and curry is pretty much accepted or something like that? What I'm saying is that if a country become reacquainted with a culture can it not learn to use the original word for what it means? I know words like Chup for shut up/shush have crept into certain people's vocabs out here... Also by extension could that mean that if hypothetically there was a French cultural invasion of the US entrée would go back to the original meaning. I'm just curious, cause yes we say language works this way or that. But I've noticed correct usage of words in certain languages pop up after such incidents. I'm pretty sure that certain Spanish words might have had that effect already in N. America though I can't think of any examples.

About No Man's Land. Some background in 90s comics might be necessary. This was post Bat-Azrael and I think somewhere right after Superman's resurrection or was it when he was dead (that part I'm not clear). Anyways it was when Lex Luthor was president of the USA. Now well when you have Lex as the president and you have Bruce Wayne as Batman that's not really going to work. There were lots of points when Batman pretty much had to go against the US government since Lex was prez. So they created this whole crossover following apocalypse which pretty much separated Gotham from the rest of the US and Batman along with GCPD and the others pretty much tried to bring order to the now chaotic Gotham. If I recall correctly there were lots of supers against it but then again since Gotham was almost independant it made sense. This type of storyline was later explored in both 52 (Black adam and his rule over that country whose name I forget) and in Marvel when the Green Goblin became in a high position of power post Secret Invasion.

Actually HC, No Man's Land is probably the only tenable one for a game environment. Since it pretty much shuts down Gotham and isolates it from the rest of the world. I think that's why HH really really wants them to use that. However that still requires you to map all of Gotham and that's huge. It's pretty much on par with creating a world that's as big as say Morrowind. It is possible in game as can be seen in things like Stalker, but it's a game that would take about 5 years to make at the least since Gotham has been heavily described through fiction, so there will be a lot of details to add. It does provide exactly that enclosed setting that you talked about since that's when the whole place is in crisis. However, and this is major. You really cannot do that story for at least a few years since the whole plot point was that there was a massive earthquake that pretty much separated Gotham from the world. Now would be the worst time to start working on such a game on an iconic character. Maybe in the future though.

As far as I'm aware, since I know people on the Film side of the board (not the games side), the rules are similar across the board. Though I guess the jury probably has a different, less strict judging criteria. I'm aware that there doesn't exist a formal screenplay for certain games. Technically I guess it makes sense that the VG industry are judging them, though it does put gaming on a lower priority for them which pretty much just reconfirms what I'd said at the start on this thread. It sort of does undermine the award to an extent. Just the story one because it's practically different to existing judging criteria for stories, shouldn't it be judged based on written merit rather than final visual execution? Then again I suppose you can't judge say Heavy Rain on the same level as something like Zodiac (which despite being a good screenplay and all, did cause me to fall asleep). While I do dislike the WGA at times (despite being a member), I think their judging standards for story are probably more accurate.

Public schools in the UK are pretty much what you would call Private Schools in the US. Schools where you pay to go. It isn't for the general public because you need money, influence and connections to go there, it's an independent school. Whereas Public schools in the US are State schools. I was just explaining why there probably was a differentiation between Public in the two contexts since it might most likely have to do with the way Public was defined in those times and separated from the general public.

Technically when the BAFTAs award something for its story it usually awards it based on screenplay. Screenplay and execution are two entirely different things. So a good screenplay might have terrible execution and vice versa. Heavy Rain does have a lot of plotholes which isn't really the fault of execution but rather with the writing. It's a very basic crime novel, something normally the BAFTAs would ignore. On the other hand there have been some really good screenplays written for games and for films that could be given the award. The reason why the story works to some extent is due to the execution, but were you to read the story in its screenplay form would you give it the award? That's the question. I've rarely seen awards given for the execution of the screenplay as opposed to the actual screenplay. Story awards here are synonymous with screenplay. I think you're confusing execution with writing. edit: The award for execution of the screenplay is the award for direction.

You know we haven't even discussed public schools have we? It's one of things that really kills us with the definition of public. While the US version means The General Public School, the British version means quite literally Public School or rather a school for a select group of individuals since public means a group of individuals and general public is the totality of that. I guess it comes from shortening things. Though to a non-native English speaker it's harder to explain cause in popular media usage when we say The Public we mean General Public. And Ethan I do believe you opened a complicated can of worms with the dialect and language discussion . I mean really modern linguistics can't convincingly agree what the difference between a language and a dialect is and have just said leave it to the individual frame of reference. Outside of that we do have things like Flapjacks which I guess is entirely different in the US. My wife (well we weren't married at the time) ordered flapjacks while we were still living in Dubai and got what we'd call Scotch pancakes which is the issue with broadcast culture really (since they do have flapjacks there and call it flapjacks too, just depends on is the chain/company a US one or a British one). This is actually the fault of language evolution, those who migrated to the US never changed the traditional usage of the word flapjack. It's completely different with certain other things that have been picked up. Series and Season in a TV sense does confuse some people who come to the UK, probably speaking from the experiences of people I work with. A series here is a season of a show, whereas in a lot of places a series is the entire show. Not to mention, and this is purely because of how it is here, you only need 6 episodes for a show to get syndicated here but you need 13 in the US. Anything less than that will have a next to impossible task to get syndication unless it rebrands itself. p.s. Anyone here speak actual RP outside of acting?

The award for Story going to Heavy Rain pretty much sums up why the BAFTAs for games aren't serious. I mean you can tell what sort of entertainment stories they want from games which is the sad part. Not that most of the nominations deserved it either. I know stories are a matter of taste but there are far better stories out there in games, mostly lesser played ones.

I've got to disagree on that. I mean yes I agree that's what makes language. But in an era where we define formal automata and try to create AI and everything is either PC or non-PC we need to define some things. And by this what I mean is that we need to formally acknowledge that US English should be called American like a few things do instead of being called US English and British English needs to be called English I guess since it's based on their people? I know there are things that are wrong in British English especially things taken from the former colonies which I do point out whenever opportunity rises. Just like how most people mispronounce things. Full Disclosure I'm not 100% White British so having certain roots in some Asian, Mediterranean and a few other countries does help my stance better in the real world. It's this particular reason why I do sort of not agree with English vs English. I just would like a formal acknowledgement from somewhere that they're two different languages. Here's the thing, this would absolutely be no problem if English wasn't a bridge language and if there were no standards. But there being two cultures who both broadcast a lot of their culture globally - the language causes confusion to a non-native English speaker and English is still not the most widely spoken language. If there can be a formal classification that these are both two different languages then we should be better. For instance Dutch, Dutch spoken in Belgium (Flemish colloquially but not officially) and Afrikaans are all very similar and in fact Dutch is the root language for those (which in turn is rooted from German). However they are recognised as different languages which prevents confusion and also helps outside groups to understand that yes it's similar but different. This would not be an issue if the cultures that broadcast in English understood the difference. As a result of this we now have varieties of local English which are fusions of the Broadcast culture. Not to make this into serious debate, but my problem lies with the fact that this misinterpretations are taken into account because of Broadcast culture. And we now do have localisations and dubs for every culture. It's not that we don't understand but certain things do break the suspension of disbelief. Though honestly I'd have preferred it if Kirby said 'this feels like pants' in the UK version of Epic yarn rather than 'this feels like trousers' simply because that would have brought a whole different level of hilarity .

I can't say I have a favourite character. I do have memorable ones though. I do believe this question is vague thanks to comic book characters and other cross-media characters that appear in games. I mean really Batman/Spider-man etc /thread . Fortunately that hasn't happened so far. Sorry to be 'that guy' btw.

Yeah I know. I don't like Mileena myself but apparently Ed Boon loves the character. I'm glad that most of the old motion capture artists like carlos pesina are still active in the game though.

I don't think it's been used 100s of years ago though. If I recall correctly entree became accepted after a wrong cookbook started circulation in the early 20th century. That does technically make it wrong since it's origins are from a misunderstanding. However when words are changed to mean different things like how Gay became from cheerful to refer to homosexuals then it's a different case. A word that's only been used wrong for recent years, when initially it was used correctly means it's a recent error. I don't think most people consider pre 1900s old as yet. it will be old once probably all the WW veterans and that generation dies out. As long as that generation is alive, it's technically not old.

Yeah Sub Zero is quite slow to start but after a few rounds it should feel more like umk3 classic subzero (not the main subzero) but scorpion is a blast.