Thursday Next

I don't see how asking for €911 ($1219) for a single game is reasonable at all. Just because they won't get everyone doesn't suddenly make the remaining people responsible for extra damages. That's probably to cover damages and legal fees. Corrupt lawyers who like to make a living by scamming innocent people don't exactly come cheap.

It should of course be known as, "The Primary Gifting Period" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2hBZcQiQek#t=6m20s

You rang? I am in fact, totally against this crap. If you can prove that the person has an illegal copy of your game (which is not a back up), then fine, take them to court and get your money. Scumbags like ACS:Law http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12253746 are no different to the parasites that call you up about "your recent accident" and "your mis-sold ppi". They are easily as bad, if not worse than the pirates they claim to be chasing.

Can a candidate disagree with a personal belief and still uphold others' rights to hold those beliefs? I like to think an ideal champion of human rights would campaign his/her heart out to defend the people's liberty to live their own lives, regardless of his/her own personal opinion on those choices. Ok, I think I wasn't clear in what I meant there. No candidate would campaign for a policy that they don't think is right. If Obama campaigns to remove the restrictions on gay marriage and so forth, it's because he disagrees with restricting the right to choose who we marry, not because he thinks that gay marriages are fricking awesome. It seems from his campaigning in support of removing the restrictions that his personal belief is that people should have the right to choose who they marry, even if they don't choose what he would, Bachman (based on the video) believes that you do not have the right to choose who you marry, you just have a choice of marry the opposite sex, or don't get married.

The problem is they're already regulating. You need an Obama to de-regulate them. If Obama were too "butt out" then nothing would change. Which is not what the LGBT community wants. Besides which all policies centre around the personal belief of whoever is in power. No leader would ever campaign for a cause that they fundamentally disagree with. It's not so much that Obama is LGBT friendly, rather that he is not LGBT unfriendly.

At least no one will need to ask what her husband does.

So you think an acceptable difficulty curve is: 1. Sit back and do nothing. 2. Sit back and do nothing. 3. Sit back and do nothing. 4. "Ninja Gaiden". I shouldn't have to make a choice between cake walk and hair pulling frustration. Hardened should be difficult, it should at least require your participation if nothing else.

Hmmm, well, it's not out till next week on PC, so I wouldn't panic just yet. What territory are you in? It might be that the link isn't showing correctly in your region.

Are you on PS3?

Apologies, wasn't trying to be patronising. Just illustrating why retail / digital hybrids aren't great for retailers and are a bit of a waste of time for 1st party. While my comment was directed at you, that's just because I didn't want to quote the whole wall-o-text, I intended for it to be read by anyone on the forum, not all of whom may know how these things work. To your point, Sony could sell codes to game for £26.25, but then they might as well charge that on the PS Store, they'll achieve the same profit. Of course they could push their price up to match whatever the retailer does, but if they do, why drive down to the shops to buy a retailer code when you can get the exact same product at home for the same price at home? The only way retailer codes work for retailers is if Sony start (continue?) profiteering on direct-to-consumer sales, charging physical goods price or higher and let retailers undercut them on in-store digital prices. But then you lose a lot of goodwill and brand loyalty along the way, something that Sony could definitely do with building up on a new console in uncertain times.

@WTF: The problem is the way that digital sales work. Sony control the cost of the codes and they sell direct to the consumer through the exact same channel that Game codes will be redeemed. If Sony sell the codes to Game for £20 each they might as well sell the game to consumers via PSN for the same. So either Game will have to have a minuscule markup, or Sony will (perhaps massively) undercut them. Or some sort of price fixing will occur where both sides agree to charge £30 for digital and £35 for physical copies but that would be a dangerous game to play. The only benefit of buying digitally in store would be that you can then gift the game, since it'd be a bit more "thoughtful" than just PSN credit, while the gifting market for video games is pretty big, it is even more seasonal than the current one.

Exactly, there's a difference between playing an easy game and a game playing itself while you watch. If Rage can make the game easy but at the same time, still require you to actually do stuff other than turn up at a checkpoint, then why can't CoD do the same? I'm happy to accept that not all of CoD is like this (I've not played it myself and have no desire to so I can't say either way what the % is actually like) but it is CoD's trademark in the single player FPS arena. They coined the whole scripted battlefield thing. Everything dies or blows up on cue so you can't really take things at your own pace. You go where the game tells you, when it tells you, and you wait there till it is time to move on. It's "movie-fied" gaming.

Limitations? I can understand baulking at the cost of memory cards, but what limitations are you referring to?

If you can sightsee through the game on everything but the ultra-mega-hardest setting then there is (in my opinion) something wrong with the game. The BlOps video Dean linked to is on Hardened and required little if any input from the player beyond the "Press X Or Die" moments. Which is exactly what Walker was driving at. "Un-Game" is perhaps going too far, but it is very scripted.

Yeah, but the Go definitely isn't undercutting the physical alternative. I think once Gamestop and co realised that the Go was going to be more expensive than the PSP hardware and the games were going to be more expensive they thought "what the hell" and stocked it. Leading up to launch there was some very bullish talk from Gamestop and other specialist retailers. Like I said, I would like for Sony to tell specialist retailers to like it or lump it but I don't think they are confident enough in their digital sales to take that risk so they will continue to price digital games on par if not more expensive than their physical equivalents, irrespective of how transparent and retarded that is.

I'd be surprised, not least because retailers would be most displeased by the move and may refuse to stock the Vita. I would love to think that Sony had the stones to tell Game and their ilk what we already know (that physical media's days are numbered) and that they can either stock Sony titles and limp on for a while or not and die all the quicker, but I don't think they will.

I quite liked the review. It recognises that CoD MW3 is a highly polished, technically well executed example of its genre. The reviewer just didn't like the singleplayer because it was more of an interactive movie than a game. He raises good points with regard to the follow thing. Why not just have a destination marker and have your squad follow you? Why not allow you to open doors? Before anyone else points it out, yes, CoD is the enemy. However, I'm no fan of MoH or BF3's singleplayer either. I'd be happier if it was replaced with an offline bot mode with split screen for up to four people. At least that way you could get some practice with the jets, helicopters and other new-fangled gadgets without burning up your teams precious resources and drawing the ire of all the professional pilots out there.

A lot of it is down to the way systems were set up. There's probably a field for code expiry dates that has to be completed. We would normally suggest that something ludicrous like 10 or 100 years be given as the expiry date, but occasionally that doesn't happen and it's only a couple of years. Like I said, if you bought it new and the code is expired I reckon most CS agents would give you a new code.

I love it. Of course gay people can get married to other gay people. They just have to be of the opposite sex... Riiiiight.

It's a teething thing, DA2 is one of the exceptions rather than the rule. I don't think the codes for new games do expire, and if you contacted CS a penny to a pound says they'd give you a new code for free.

Gods be praised.

We say what now?

I think it's more common to say either "to-may-to" or "to-mah-to" than "po-tay-to" or "po-tah-to". Pretty sure Potahto was just for the song. Battra will likely know as it's his era sort of thing.

Surely you mean "Mee-tane" or "Meh-tane". ;-)