Thursday Next

In the trailers I seem to recall I saw Harrison Ford looking scared like he does when suddenly and unexpectedly outnumbered by hordes of Stormtroopers/Natives/Ants so wasn't sure if that was somewhat slapstick-esque. "Cowboys" is, for me at least a light hearted term. You play Cowboys and Injuns when you're a kid. When you grow up you watch Westerns / Spaghetti Westerns. First to admit I'm judging a film by the cover, which is why I asked if someone, preferably someone who's seen it could let me know what sort of film it is. Basically, is it more "Men In Black" or "Way of the Warrior"? or is it another beast entirely?

If you buy anything second hand you don't get the service that comes with a first purchase. Cars: No manufacturer warranty, but you can buy a warranty from the main dealer. Sky: Buy second hand box, minimum channels unless you subscribe. Phone: No calls unless you pay. Games are no different. Buy second hand and wysiwyg. Buy new or pay the extra and you get to have the full service. Portal wasn't just a Valve thing (please don't make the mistake of thinking they are some benevolent altruistic NPO, they're out to make money too), first purchasers of Alice MR got Alice free. Second hand have to pay for it. EA also did "buy Dead Space 2 LE (which iirc cost no more than the standard edition) get Dead Space Extraction free". Not sure what you mean by "charging for demos" and as for "taking out" content, that simply doesn't happen. A game doesn't get made, then EA look at it and say "what can we remove from this to sell separately?" DLC is planned from the start to be a separate offering. There is a degree of customers getting caught in the crossfire, but that's on Gamestop. They know that the second hand products are worth $10 less once the code is burnt, they just haven't moved to take that into account. They've been ripping customers off for years with used sales anyway. Maybe this will finally make people realise that it's not such a great deal after all.

To be somewhat bull headed. Gamestop are the ones that should budge on this. Publishers (developers etc.) create the content and provide the service. When it comes to used game sales Gamestop pay naff all for them and then charge fractionally below the RRP for the next guy to walk in. It's free money for them, they've been creaming mega bucks off of selling the same game twice (or thrice) and don't kick anything back to the publishers. If they'd kept the publisher sweet by chipping a % of the profits their way, then publishers be much more pumped about used game sales. As it is, publishers will continue to annex the "service" part of their products and retain control over that. Gamestop will just have to adjust their pricing structure to reflect the fact that second time round they are only selling content and not service.

Feelin Elgar today. It's all about the Enigma Variations. Then maybe some Thomas Tallis.

Nimrod > Dorabella

Gran Torino is a legendary film though. So balances out the Smokin' Aces purchase.

Thing is, I'm not sure what sort of film it's meant to be. The title makes me think it's a "Night in the Museum" style comedy romp, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to take it more seriously than that. Is it supposed to be like "Way of the Warrior" (Cowboys and Ninjas)? If so, I'm interested, but really, I liked Way of the Warrior's style more than its substance.

Killzone 3 - Done! Just trying to clear my backlog.

Hahaha. Animated one is weird. I wonder if he'll pop out of the background as much as I think he will? It'd be like a Who Framed Roger Rabbit version of Batman.

Battlelog is here to stay. It's got a few advantages over launching a client up front. Firstly, you can just have a battlelog tab open and see if any of your friends are online rather than having to boot the game and see who is playing (yes Steam does this too, but BF3's not *on* Steam yet <-- Not a confirmation or denial of Steam support). Secondly, you can manage your favourite servers, view your stats, see leaderboards, manage squads, add friends and people and what not all without booting the game. Thirdly, when you do eventually boot the game you don't have to sit through any obnoxious EA logo --> DICE logo --> etc. So far as "number of clicks" or "hassle" goes, I don't see what disadvantage Battlelog has over launching a client. Just go to Battlelog when you want to play BF3.

As of right now, you can't circumvent it (and it's an absolute clusterfuck as to how to launch it). You click the game in Origin, and on most other platforms, it would just launch right away, right? Wrong. On Origin, clicking BF3 instead takes you to the Battlelog, which is basically a stat tracking website. From there, you then click to join multiplayer, and once it finds an open game, THEN you can launch BF3. That better not make it into the full game, because that's a horrendous way to launch a game. I'm pretty sure you can just got to Battlelog and launch from there. No need to go through Origin.

Star Wars is not wholly owned IP. Battlefield on the other hand is. So while EA can do whatever the hell it wants with BF, with SW it's bound to an extent by what LA will allow for SW. Also worth noting that while it may not look like it, most of these services are interconnected.

EA seem to be quite pleased with the pre-orders for both this and BF3... Unless they do a Homefront and steal the most cancelled pre-order crown, both games should be successful by most measures.

Activate Smug Mode. Probably going to wait for Layton v Wright though. That's my system seller.

Certainly don't feel bad for them, but a 40% / $90 discount is pretty good really isn't it? *NOTE* I know that you can probably get the 3DS for less than $249 already, but assuming the discount will be in proportion to the actual price.

Alpha / Feature Complete means that all the maps, guns, levels etc are in the game and are testable. No new content should be added once a game has been declared Alpha. How those features work is still in flux. So while a new menu screen shouldn't be added the content of that menu screen could change. While a new gun shouldn't be added everything from its graphical appearance to its stats can change. Of course that's how it's supposed to work. In reality games will often be declared Alpha before being feature complete as dev payments can be linked to hitting such milestones. If you have any questions specific to the Alpha, I strongly recommend you drop them in the BF3 Alpha forums so as to avoid breaching any NDA that you may have had to agree to. I'm sure someone from EA / DICE will respond to you there. I'm not saying that any of that is specifically true for BF3, that's just how things work in the industry generally.

3DS going down in price: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/28/nintendo-3ds-price-drops-from-249-to-169-august-12th-current/ hopefully this will extend globally.

They still mean the same at EA. Alpha = Feature Complete. Beta = No unknown bugs.

Haha. Penguin is a cross between Bob Hoskins and Cartman doing his English (lil scheme) accent.

Nope. I looked at the picture. That's about it it. Did it say things in the articles?

You know these two groups are not mutually exclusive yes?

The BBC are running a campaign surveying 3G connections in the UK. To take part you can download the app here: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.epitiro.uk3g

Was he giving out gold?

Ahhh! Yes. I've been caught out by these so called "hash browns" before. They are, in fact, short chips. UK hash browns are made with shredded potato formed into patties (normally a right-angle triangle shape not sure why).

It's such an easily subverted principle. Suicide bombers are standing up for what they believe in. Dictators stand up for what they believe in. If everyone stands up for what they believe in with no possibility of being swayed, then the whole world will end in conflict. How's about this for a belief, I believe that Captain America is the second crappest super hero ever. I believe that I would rather see a super hero film about the Green Cross Code Man than Captain America. You can believe that, even if it is bullheaded. Of course, who said there wasn't an opportunity for reason and debate. It's peer pressure if anything. For example, you're not giving up into believing the idea that you're the only one wrong while everyone else has a mild interest for the character. You're standing firm and trying to assert an opinion that bares more resemblance to extremism with how you derive nationalism and totalitarianism from a single quote. Really, who would have guessed ideals like "freedom of speech" could be such double-edged swords, or should I say "easily subverted principles." Freedom of speech is everyone's right to express themselves provided it does not infringe another's freedom to do so, one person expressing their views does not affect another person who may wish to do the same. Telling the whole world "No-You move." is oppressive it seeks to limit the freedom of others in favour of what one person thinks is right. It is also combative in tone. Whatever happened to "I may not agree with what you are saying, but I will fight for your right to say it."? With that. I'm going to play my "Agree to Disagree" card on this conversation. I can't stand Captain America. I hope he doesn't feature too heavily in the Avengers movie. I'm not telling anyone else to not like it, or not watch it.