Thursday Next

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.

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.

Huh? By no one, I mean "Not one of his fans." take the below quote: "Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — 'No, you move.'" Basically boils down to: "Captain America is always right. Everyone else can go to hell." How about, if the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, you ought to reassess your situation rather than trying to blindly impose your beliefs on everyone else? That statement from the Cap pretty much sums up the "world police" perception of America, it's not a good thing.

Maybe he doesn't stand for "The American Government", or "The American People", rather, he's held out as the personification of how utterly fantastic America is at it's heart hence the "This nation was founded". It's that notion that Captain America is a "pure" (and I use that word with the full weight of history behind it) or "true" American and that, as such he is the barometer of Freedom and Crap Like That. Not to mention that no one blinks when he measures the rest of the world against his morality and that grinds on me somewhat.

Bah, so it will be at least that long till PS3 I bet. L'ame as they say in France.

Corden should fuck off x2.

Quite. Not getting what a "Southern" Hash Brown is. The rest I get.

What is the difference between a tatertot (which I understand to be a hash brown) and southern hash browns? Do you name food based on it's location on your plate? Did you have a continent of tatertots to the north, necessitating the renaming of the southern tatertots? Why is your plate geopolitical? Why?

Hope we don't have to wait absolutely ages for the PS3 release. Really want this one.

So is it okay if I buy a game and then don't play it at the same time as I let a friend copy it to his hard drive and download a crack? Not at all. I'm saying that if it could only exist on one hard drive at a time then piracy would be the same as lending a disc. That is that for as long as the person you gave it to had it available for their use, you did not have it available for your use. I think I have five or six games lent out to various friends right now. The only reason I usually say "no" is if I don't trust that I'll get it back easily. You seem to have missed my point. Would you be willing to "share" a game if it was going to be downloaded by a random and you had to wait till they gave it back? Pretty much the same as, would you walk into a train station and offer to lend your games to any passer-by? Seems like you wouldn't. So all this talk of "I'm just sharing games" doesn't fly with me because it's not some selfless gesture for the good of the people, it's not even helping out a mate by letting them borrow your game. If pirates could not access their games without getting them signed back to them by the downloader, I think most people would stop "sharing" games overnight, or at least they would do it on a one to one basis. Not broadcasting them. Honestly I think the way BioWare does DLC is pretty horrible and takes me out of the experience a lot, not to mention that the quality of their DLC usually isn't up to snuff (Shale from DA:O excluded) so I'd rather they don't do it at all. But that's a different discussion entirely. Quality of DLC notwithstanding, my point is that companies don't wait till a game is released to make DLC for some very sound reasons.

Haha. Great minds think alike.

Well here at least it's primary school education... Yup. Same here. Even the dullards that skipped science got taught this in music. Maybe the sound is from Captain America's arm shaking because he is such a wuss.

Actually, I do get this one. Sweet things tend to go with meat generally, duck and plum Sauce, turkey and cranberry, pork and apple, barbecue sauce is pretty damned syrupy and ketchup is sugary too. I quite like maple syrup on sausages and bacon.

Except that by lending a disc to your friend you are depriving yourself of it for that period of time. So it's totally different. In essence, I sell my copy to my friend who then sells it back to me afterwards and the transaction zero-sums. That's not stealing, it's just reselling / loaning. Piracy means that you both get simultaneous use of the game. It also means that it is very easy for a pirate to feel altruistic about "just sharing things" when they don't lose anything in the process. I wonder how many pirates would be so keen to "share" a game if it meant they could not use it until it was returned? Piracy is not considered stealing because you are not "depriving" the owner of anything other than a potential sale and the law takes a dim view on potential. 1. Pirate because DLC sucks. I hope you bought the game as well and just played the pirated copy. Otherwise this isn't so much a moral stand as it is taking stuff for free with a weak excuse. 2. Pirate because DLC is made during game production. EA make a lot of games at the same time, do you think you should get all of them on one disc for the price of one game? DLC has to be started at the same time the game is finalling. It takes months to program, weeks to test, it then has to be submitted to first parties. That means that you could be waiting up to a year for a piece of DLC if the company waited till the "full" game was out the door. Given that EA want to keep the games with the first purchaser as long as possible they need to get some substantive DLC out within the first month or two of launch. That means it has to be in testing before the game launches and that means they have to start work on it while the game is being made. Further, if you need to blend DLC in with an existing story then it has to be planned concurrently otherwise it will looked tacked on rather than an extension of the universe. Yes this means empty rooms on the Normandy that you know are for DLC characters, but would you prefer that the characters started double bunking? Or that an extra lump got glued to the Normandy for expanded living quarters?

Oh, here's another one... I'm not sure if this is a US thing, or an ignorant thing (I do acknowledge that the two aren't always mutually exclusive). But "Addicting"? No. It's "addictive".

Yeah, it's "mate" where I'm from. One of my mates uses "guys" but he's posh by my standards... well not posh, just a touch snooty. On the other end of the scale, my cousin is from the lower end of the class scale he uses "geeze" an abbreviation of "geezer" ("g" pronounced as in "get"). Now for a bit of mythbusting: Do the US really not use the word hell much? In the UK "bloody 'ell", "what the hell" etc are all pretty common, "heck" just doesn't work for me.

I'm 29, most of my friends are there or thereabouts... perhaps that explains it. Thanks for making me feel old.

If I recall correctly, Uncharted 2 seemed much longer than could be finished on a single setting. I'm sure Uncharted 2 on crushing took some time (though easier than Uncharted 1 on crushing). But it's been a while I recall platinuming the game in barely 7 days since it was a lot of fun. One of the first to platinum it in fact for some reason. I remember some people were surprised that I was done so fast. I agree that MP isn't a bad thing at all. it's just some games do not implement MP in an engaging way. If you plan to bring Multiplayer to a game then you should think about it from ground up and not just some random hobbled rubbish which annoys players and prevents a community from forming. I do agree about your points on MP though that it's not all just a bro thing. I'd like to think that AC's multiplayer was done well because they had the concept down for the iPhone and all they needed to do was implement it for HD and it worked for them. Dunno, second playthrough always seems to whizz past on Uncharted games. The length stems mostly from working out where to go / what to do. Crushing takes longer cos you need to be so cautious in gun battles, but I normally knock it down to easy to collect trophies / treasures, get my headshots up and such, then it is super short. Which raises a good point. If I want to, I can blast through games rather swiftly, but, I tend to be a bit of a wanderer in games, I like to backtrack when I shouldn't (which paid off when I played through Limbo last night) so that adds some time, and complete side quests before continuing with the story. My infamous playtime is huge but that's because I always did all the side missions before the next story bit, then collected all the shards and dead drops before I went on to the endgame.