WTF

I might drop by if I'm in London. I'm unsure at the moment as I'm scheduled to visit Dubai and see my parents (they'd migrated there a while back) sometime in September-November. And maybe visit India as well. Of course if I'm doing some camera work for someone then I might attend the press day. Been there twice like that.

Yikes. That's some user review skew. This is Bioware's lowest rated game in 10 years anyhow. I think the real problem is that Bioware should probably have called this a Dragon Age: Hawke than Dragon Age 2. That's the issue. Most people play a sequel expecting it to be a bit similar in terms of experience to the original and a refinement of the original game. But from what I've heard it really isn't. Not to mention everything that happened in DA1 is even less significant with a few exceptions in this game. There's also a lot of misinformation about this game going on. In other words FUD minus the F. The game feels rushed according to many people and there's an issue with Nvidia cards on the PC. The console versions are graphically better this time and technically except for those expecting this to be a true sequel it is pretty good for a console version. The PC version does have some issues. I've already been spoilered so here's a few These are some of the complaints I've come across so far. Seriously one of the main issue seems to be that everything is so centered around Hawke, who most people do not think is a bad character. They just don't know why we should care a lot about him/her.

I know I said I lost my save and was not going to play DA:O and it turns out that some kind soul's actually decided I don't have to I've not got the game yet to say if it works or not. But here's a link to a save file generator to use in DA2. http://social.bioware.com/project/4242/

Just wanted to add one point to what Dean said. Technically selling mid-budget is a new concept albeit a variant of what's existed in the film industry for a while. Some filmmakers (like Ken Loach) sell distribution rights for their film before it gets released in order to maintain a production budget so that they can finish their movie. These days it's also easier to crowdsource which has to varying degrees of success been done for films. The asking people to pay mid-budget is an extension of that. It's easier for games because it's possible to give a working alpha of the game and/or trailer and those impressed will pay money. In films showing a trailer and asking for money means also giving these people production credit in a lot of cases. I think game devs could start doing that too because to be honest being credited could give a greater incentive to getting it funded. Also piracy can't be equated to bankruptcy at all for the ones complaining, it's just the whole problem of everything being virtual again. When people translate piracy to lost sales that means they translate the pirated numberst to what should be expected returns which in turn in a lot of cases leads to a bigger budget for the next production. Where it needs to stop is bigger budgets. Half of this problem is because games want better VFX designers and most of them are pretty much in good post-pro and production houses and get a very nice salary too. Game industry salaries can't really compete with that unless the budget is increased. But they do not need Film-level VFX designers it's something they do need to realise. Games do not require that level of effects, people have a much lower threshold for a game than a film especially these days. I mean look at some of Naughty Dog's staff they were at ND and then several of them worked in Hollywood and now they're back working on Uncharted. I doubt they're working at whatever salary they used to years ago. it's the same for every company. These salaries do inflate the budget. I'm not saying don't hire talent at all, but it's best if they don't try to compete with films. In some ways its easier for Sony due to them owning Studios but it's not so for all game companies. In the end, I don't think the modern consumer can force anything extreme onto publishers. But game pubs and devs need to realise that we need different levels of game prices which means different strata of game budgets. At one point, the internet will be completely regulated. Forces of order and chaos at work and you know if human society has proved anything is that ultimately everything will be 'ordered'. The internet will eventually be regulated. All it takes is for one idiot to do something really terrible that people will be willing to have it regulated. This one thing can be orchestrated as well. Piracy at that point will be largely dead, mostly because of regulations. it will have to be something really terrible, but it will happen eventually because of growing apathy towards human actions which always leads to something much bigger and far worse. Might take years though since growth has sort of trickled and the new generation is maturing.

Piracy is always going to be an issue and a non-issue at the same time. The thing is prior to the 20th century most entertainment was cheap and free or only for the truly privileged. As film and TV gained popularity, it went from being lowbrow entertainment for the working class to something for the privileged masses. The internet democratized entertainment and brought increased access. Prior to that rights and distribution issues prevented several entertainment media from being accessed by a large number of people and territories. In fact stores made a business of renting out bootlegged tapes and eventually CDs and DVDs so long as they weren't a big chain and were a local business. Back then piracy existed but not many actually cared because there was no way for the production companies to actually get into those markets. Small towns, remote countries, a good portion of Asia and Africa and of course the Middle East (which is inc in Asia but is a separate market) all pretty much had businesses profiting from piracy. I remember when you could buy these things in supermarkets in some of those countries. Nowadays while internet has democratized access, it has also brought about control for the content creators and of course the distributors. More people are also involved in these industries than before, which means more people are dependant on it for their livelihoods. At the same time more younger people who don't really have the purchasing power of an adult are also there who believe pretty much it's a given right to get all these things. One thing that those born before the internet was widely accessible never realise is that information was not always free and still is for a large part not free. It's only free because a lot of people who suffered from the lack of info decided to give it away for free. Now here's where things get tricky. All these goods are mostly virtual, yes you can have a box and a disc for your game or your movie but for the large part it is something that pretty much takes real estate on your hard drives and when something is virtual it's difficult to associate it with something that's physical. A tangible good can fall under theft laws, an intangible good now has copyright and newer laws to account for these. But it's still an intangible, just like an idea. However now you can patent, trademark and or copyright the execution of an idea but not an idea itself and that brings a lot of interesting stuff to the table really. Virtual things predominate our lives, even money is largely virtual these days in a credit economy and that's where the problem really lies. To a kid somewhere, it is actually managing numbers. Do some people committing fraud think they're doing a crime? Not really. [i specifically mean those people who steal money in transit to gain interest and return it as well. People who make money out of money just sitting there doing nothing.] You might be surprised to find out that certain financial institutions actually make money by buying loans and then making bets as to whether these people pay them back or not. Basically buying bad debts and then making betting shares which are paid for. If the house wins, it's a lot of money and if those betting win they earn a bit too. Either way the investment is mostly safe. Of course that's the simplified version. Piracy is an extremely complicated issue of entitlement, versus real profits and running costs vs projections. All businesses work on projections, it's because of this that a business believes that a every item pirated is a lost sale. I mean where else would it fit in their projection. It's not a bad debt, it's not a sale and there's no such thing as a definite or indefinite sale in a projection because it's a projection, an estimate if you will. The issue can to a large extent be solved by reducing the gaming budget, spreading across platforms, homogenising platforms yet maintaining their identity or rather USP, and other ways of reducing costs. Yes there will always be douchebags who pirate, just like there are always going to be people who rob and steal even if their circumstances aren't bad. However if things are at an affordable rate from the start, piracy should be quite limited. These days indie games are quite cheap because of steam, iOS, Android etc (some of them are still expensive on the PSN, XBLA and wiiware because all these companies provide them funding and inflate the budget a bit to get better returns - it works too. Not to mention these platforms come with their own R&D requirements). However indie games are less pirated, it's why there's so many of them right now. However because everyone's going indie these days their viewshare will drop and only few will get purchased bringing us back to the point where devs will say people are pirating our games since the paying customer will be unaware of the good ones amongst the vast amount of choice and those who pirate will pirate everything because it's how it is. This would largely skew the numbers. Piracy is a far more complex issue because of how the internet went public really. Generally I don't like to talk about piracy despite having been affected by it a few times, simply because it's not really worth it (unless it's a case where someone's product is pirated 90% and there's absolutely no revenue at all and the person's now really in financial trouble). If you've truly made something good, people will pay for it provided you give a fair price. Those who pirate despite that have a pathological need to pirate which partly comes from entitlement and partly is because not every person is alike or goodnatured. Exceptions to these are those who do not have access to these things due to where they live or other factors. Some of the things that people in general (wherever piracy comes up) say about piracy are pretty much in my opinion an extension of whitewhine.

Developer: Ignition Entertainment Publisher: Ignition Entertainment Lead Designer: Takeyasu Sawaki Most of the art people from Clover Design Other People sort of Involved: Shane Bettenhausen (Former 1up/EGM guy) Release Date: April 28th Japan End of Summer (US and EU) Platforms PS3/360 First Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUFROkKk_9s Gameplay Video Voice Actors: Blake Ritson As Enoch Jason Isaacs As Luciphel Hands on Previews: Siliconera Gamesradar (brief) Joystiq GiantBomb Quick Look I'll add more later A few things to note: The game possesses no HUD or interface menus like that. There is an easy transition between 2D and 3D segments of the game. Apparently you start most levels with no weapons though Enoch can throw punches and kick enemies. You do reclaim weapons easily at the start regardless. Enoch doesn't have a lot of dialogue and just says he's fine whereas Luciphel will keep talking to you and sometimes pull a Bertolt Brecht. It features mostly 1 Button combat but the focus for this game is art design though gameplay will be similar to 3rd person platform actioners (after all most of these guys are of the original DMC, viewtiful joe team). The game can be completed in about 12-15 hours though Luciphel will taunt you to try and finish it in 8. You'll be visiting the realms of fallen angels for each level and the level design varies depending on the nature of the angel. You'll face a lot of enemies though certain weapons will help you just move through without having to fight them.There are unescapable enemies though. Of course the game has been extremely popularised via memes. PS3 Retail Xbox 360 Retail Boxart Screenshots Official Sites Global http://elshaddaigame.com/index.html Japan http://elshaddai.jp/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElShaddaiGame P.S. I'm not in any way associated with this game, but I thought it would be nice if we could make official threads for games with all info on it which would make it easier for us to find it if we want.

I think the problem with moral choices lies within how we study AI and of course Binary Logic. Shades of Gray is pretty hard to define in the scope of a game. Sure we can put a Yes, No and third option and then use three values, make a table corresponding to our actions and their impact on the storyworld and then program it into that, but it's a lot of coding and it won't be satisfactory enough because the outcome of X and Y with Z in consideration varies from person to person. Not all the outcomes will be believable to every player (so they'd just go with the majority). Just like how reviews are opinions and not everyone agrees with opinions. The 3 by 3 grid If Lawful to Chaotic and Good to Evil gives a bit more freedom and sort of makes us appreciate the wider range of choices. However implementing something beyond that in a artificial controlled world isn't that simple. We can implement simpler things like this thing in Disaster Report 4. http://www.andriasan...ort_4_old_maps/ If you don't wish to visit the link, just to be brief it's like you're escaping from a burning building and a fire and then you revisit the place a few months later and see the ruins. You can tell its the same environment (images via the link). Moral choices can represent that but it's a lot of things to consider in design and that makes narrative and design a little more difficult for game devs as has been mentioned in the thread. However, for us to truly face something new, you probably need a game that 'learns' as you play and has a synaptic centre that learns from each decision we make and decides to throw in an X set of parameters programmed in based on how we react in the game. Such a thing can happen eventually I guess if people aren't too scared of an artificial semi-sentience. As for Bioware, Dean and Ethan are pretty right. What Bioware did was introduce a system with KoToR and kept refining at it. However they did sort of discard their BG ethics when creating these games. Now they're trying to fuse the two but are still a bit far to make it unobvious what the meaningful choices are. This I believe is a direct result of player feedback and player interaction. I mean if they packed into their games a feedback mechanism just to see how the players react, what they did in the game, what choices kept them playing instead of reloading old saves and things like that. They are studying the player and instead of actually refining the system trying to make the system more enjoyable to a larger audience that plays their games. I don't think creating true morality crosses their minds as opposed to tailoring experiences for their crowd. I mean they're doctors after all, they'd be more interested to see what makes the player tick as opposed to implementing a ruleset or creating AI. A person's background gives a lot of insight into what kind of stuff they'd like to create.

I crack my knuckles especially in winter. I don't want them to get too stiff. My ankles, knee and heels crack every few days or so. I don't try to do that. Due to some habits I picked up in my late teens and early 20s my jaw also cracks once in a while. While being quite flexible I can't quite crack my back. I can however like a monkey use my feet like my hands. Grab stuff with it and write too if I decide to give effort. My big toe sometimes seems like it's evolving into an opposable thumb...

Basically the two of them taking ownership of my older chair. And this is the girl I thought they were some generic breed when I got them turns out they're Bombays (still common enough). He pretty much behaves like a dog, waits for me if I go into a room and close the door. Waits for me everywhere I go in the house. Acts like a dog, fetches stuff. Only thing is he's a cat and likes to be on my lap. She's fine, more shy of strangers, meows to go into rooms which are closed and waits for you patiently. Also does tricks. I've previously owned dogs, but don't have enough room for the kind of dog I'm used to (Alsatians, German Shepherds, Huskies) and my previous ones are long dead. Anyways didn't know there was a pet thread Oh yeah he also likes to dance and sometimes howls

I get that. Though generally when something looks closer to us, the more we tend to distrust it. The less it looks human the more we trust it. Works differently with animals though, if you take a look at the animals we keep as pets particularly you can see how the ones that we've allowed to propogate have humanoidish features. Yes while they are mammals, not everything has what we with our human eyes consider 'pretty' or 'beautiful'. Most of what we consider are unnatural which sort of explains how we've managed to get animals to look the way we want over the years we've domesticated them.

Besides all those shows that Dean's Mentioned James May used to go around with Oz Clarke on some wine adventures for a few documentaries. On topic about the Geminoids, I've always thought they were pretty interesting though I'm still not sure if it's something totally worth doing. I remember some 5-6 years ago a Russian Scientist was working on replicating the human brain (was pretty close too). [it was around the time I'd stopped working on a personal study on what causes us to think, the whole bit of being self-aware and the chemistry behind it.] Imagine if those two basically came together. Again OT: they're apparently going to do a prequel for Bladerunner. Sigh poor PK Dick.

More Deals Battlefield 3: LE (PC) for £29.99 Amazon. It's not bad for a pre-order. Keep in mind that the prices will stay at the lowest possible since the point you ordered and they can raise for those ordering later. Console versions are 39.89 for the LE LE comes with --> Available for a limited time, the Battlefield 3 pre-order offer features the digital expansion pack Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand at no extra charge. This themed multiplayer expansion pack includes four legendary maps from Battlefield 2 boldly re-imagined with Frostbite 2 physics,destruction and visuals. Completing the package are classic Battlefield 2 weapons and vehicles, unique rewards, new achievements/trophies, and more. Blazblue: Calamity Trigger for 7.99. At Base.com

It is easier on the PC to try and release something like that at least via indie sources since DD for some helps them get away without being officially rated. Titles like The void, The Path, etc aren't scary but have a good haunting atmosphere. I'm amused by the number of 'I'm so scared that I can't play Amnesia' videos that youtube has . It isn't that scary but the atmosphere in that game is really nice.

I used to use Gamestracker but man it's a bit iffy on the updates. It's not bad if you just want to generally look for the price of a game but they're slower on getting the news on a good deal. Kinda better to go with HotUKDeals though hot deals get HUKDed pretty fast. Cheaparsegamer is a bit slow on the update as well these days. if I was on I'd have posted the earlier HMV deals. Animal Crossing with Wii Speak was only £10, Sin and Punishment was £8 and Mirror's Edge (360) was £2.

Oh for those in the US Bulletstorm's already dropped to $39.99 at Amazon Probably isn't doing too well I guess. Also I forgot to mention Play-Asia is currently selling the Ltd Ed of Fable 3 for $28.90 which currently for those in the UK translates to £17.94. Just like with Halo: Reach the game is region-free. Dunno about DLC or anything.

Here's a bunch of deals for UK/Euro Metro 2033 (PC) This one's from Play.com and it's £5. Now yes the game has been that price on Steam for most of its deals but this also comes with a copy of Red Faction: Guerilla which makes it a good purchase. Not to mention if I recall correctly Metro2033 retail is a steamworks title. RF:G isn't afaik. Mafia 2: Special Edition (PC) Gamestation for £6.99. Decent deal. Alan Wake (360) at Amazon.co.uk £8.99 GTA 4 Complete (PS3) at gameplay.co.uk £11.99 Yakuza 4 is £29.86 at Shopto.net currently Also if you are interested in homefront (doubt it on this side of the atlantic) you can preorder from bee.com) for £29.99

It's been three years since I first saw this... and that song is still stupid and amusing. At least it's not as bad as the Khan Chacarron (I don't even remember how I found out the name of that dumb song) combo. Also on a depressing note, this has been going on for quite some time now and it's just getting worse The drying of the Aral Sea. This is completely the fault of humans just like how technically for all intents and purposes Mexico City is a disaster of human planning done mostly thanks to the conquest of the region. Lots more places where human planning was not ideal (though not on that website). The site also links several places in the world that have been abandoned.

Yeah it's still coming. Eric Chahi did speak about it even in some recent interview where he was talking about the port of Another World to the iOS. It's also interesting that Paul Cuisset also decides to reappear after so long with his PSN exclusive game Amy (also sounds quite interesting) So far Amy sounds like a survival horror Ico like game.

Actually oddly enough Disaster Report 4 has now leapt its way into one of my most anticipated titles for the year (I believe I might have to import this title). http://www.famitsu.c...3/07041136.html Not that it wasn't on my list, but every tiny info I get (which isn't a lot) is positive (for me anyways).

Oh I was hired for some contract work by a production company to film a pilot (which is still being considered for TV), 2 shorts and some footage for a commercial.

Oh yeah the scythe made it so easy. I thought the tibetan war cannon would be useful when I first played it and well it was barely useful except in extreme cases.

Gah! You know that probably should head off to a pet peeve section. But really... As for the date formats argued by both of you, I don't think you can argue that MDY and YMD are the same technically since the one used in the US Is middle endian as opposed to big endian used by the supposedly agreed international system and of course the little Endian system used by most parts of the world (primarily former British colonies when you think about it) Big Endian - 1.5B, Middle Endian .2B and Little Endian 3.2B. However the logic is correct when it comes to how it originated was based on how it was said. No one technically would say the little endian system except for a device in the English language, which is why the rate of adoption is higher in non-English speaking countries primarily. As far as I know, Australia uses the the DDMMYYYY just like most former British Colonies. The reason why Philippines uses both is because they were at one point an imperialist colony of the US and Saudi Arabia because of several gated oil communities which pretty much had quite a lot of influence in the past (unlike the others where the US influence was felt more recently only and prior to that they were just former British controlled territories despite having local rulers). But we do (human society) suck for adopting international standards. People should be using kilometres, kilogram, and the like it should be the SI system and not the MKS or the FPS but right now we've started to use an amalgam of rubbish in the UK and the US, The UK hasn't gotten rid of the distance measurements for the roads but have for most others. The US on the other hand still uses the old Pound based weight system which is evident especially when you start to follow recipes. For some odd reason when it comes to personal health the UK uses both the FPS and MKS systems though the MKS by proxy of being similar to the SI system is more commonly 'officially' used.

While I personally didn't find it that scary, my brother and his friends (who are adults in their 20s now) were pretty much scared when this game came out some 10 years ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgr20izOup0 I loved playing it at night. It has some awesome sound effects. It's a shame that this game's probably even more forgotten than American McGee's Alice. (The Studio is now EALA of the infamous LMNO game). The Game's Producer Brady Bell also famously produced Trespasser: Jurassic Park (which also was somewhat ahead of its time).