Thursday Next

Pssst... You didn't hear it from me, but I've heard they're implementing USB gamepads that work with PCs. Just don't tip Kotaku or else everyone might find out. Didn't occur to me to do that, I can't imagine playing something FPS-ish with a controller when there's a Mouse and Keyboard option. Still don't think it's on the cards.

I've not visited Kotaku for ages, but I'm still on their newsletter list, I was somewhat amused by their "Guess what, Kinect is actually kinda rubbish." article. No shit Kotaku, who would have thought that the game where pet a pretend tiger and the mini-games that came with the hardware would get boring huh? I can only assume that the money MS paid to Kotaku for their shameless shilling of the jumped up eye-toy has run out now.

Ummm... don't believe so. I'll let you know. There's a few little tricks to help communicate without voice, but conveying "When I jump from here to here, you need to put a portal there... 3, 2, 1...NOW!" with pointing and gestures and bouncing on the spot is only going to lead to frustration. EDIT: Split-screen on PC? Like with two mouses and two keyboardses? Probably not.

If you're gonna coop this. You must... must must must must must... must use voip. Or be psychic.

Also note that the Coalition didn't raise tuition fees. They just allowed Universities to do so. As for awesome opening ceremonies... let us not forget the amazing shows our favourite former colony put on: Bra-flipping-vo. Also, Dean, a more relevant protest (i.e. Students, fees, protests...) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2541075.stm On balance, this Coalition is not so bad thus far. They seem to be dealing with the economy ok, time will tell on that one and personally I'm not really feeling the effects of the economic downturn (one of the benefits of having paid all those tuition fees I guess). Fuel prices are a drag, but that's as much because the Opec cartel are fleecing the whole planet as it is because of fuel duty. I like the leadership of Clegg and Cameron, and I find Ed Miliband to be entirely unelectable (they should've gone with David) as Ed is pretty much a Union stooge and had no leadership presence.

One thing to add to this. It's really, really, REALLY important that games are recognised as art. The reason that some games get "banned" or softened in Germany is because games don't yet fall under the category of "art", or rather they don't by default. Once a medium is accepted as "Art" the barriers start to fall down, films are considered "Art", so "Inglourious Basterds" could be shown in Germany with all the Swastikas and such on show. Medal of Honor (the WWII ones) are not "Art" so they face a ban or the developer needs to produce a softened version. Not to mention that "Art" gets numerous tax breaks and help from many governments. So while this may be a purely mental exercise for many of you, it has some striking real world consequences for the industry as a whole. Personally, I believe that games area creative medium, the rules that make up the games are perhaps not art (though they could be), but the finished product is. To take the "Chess" analogy to it's logical conclusion: Are all chess sets art? Probably not. Are they capable of being art? Absolutely. The same goes for games. Not all games are art, but the medium, and the individual games are all certainly capable of being art.

You're getting bogged down in the semantics of what the word "colour" means to the profession. I'm not talking about "colour" I'm talking about "Colour". May I present Ethan and Myself. Also known as "the average Joe." To the average Joe, there are two types of film colourisation. "Black & White" and "Colour". Yes, I get that "Black" and "White" are "Colours" but you must know what the average Joe means by "Black & White" and "Colour". "Colour" is not essential to a film. I can watch Iron Man on a Black & White TV and it will display just fine. 3D is the same. I prefer watching films in "Colour" because that is how I see the world. I also like to watch films in stereoscopic 3D because evolution blessed me with a nice set of predatory eyes and it's great to put them to use. You saying that all films are in colour therefore colour is essential is like me saying that all films are in 3D so 3D is essential. All films try to give the impression of depth, whether that is done with lighting, perspective or stereoscopic trickery. EDIT: Put my emphasis in the wrong place and also... Ethan, hope I'm not putting words in your mouth. Or on your fingers. Or whatever the internet equivalent is. P.S. Relevant to the topic. This is what I mean about simplification and misinformation. You've misinterpreted a simplification as being "wrong" when in fact we're just not using the terminology you would.

Uh... No. His argument is neither null nor void. All I said was that colour is a tool like 3D. Some people use colour well, some people use it badly just like 3D. Either way, films can, did and do exist in black and white just as they will continue to exist in 2D. What I'm saying is "Colour is as essential as 3D". In fact I'd go further and say that "3D is as essential as colour, which is as essential as film."

Why in slow motion? Isn't the point of 120hz to watch speedy things go speedy?

I think Crytek's biggest mistake in the Multiplayer mode is to have locked away different game modes until you've ranked up. I get that they want you to have the basics down first, but having to wait till you and all your friends are at X level before playing Capture the Flag is monumentally retarded. I'm not a fan of team death match, even less so of death match. I much prefer objective based play, so at the moment I'm being punished until I can get to a mode I want to play (and that's with the Nano Edition XP boost that puts me straight in at level 5).

I played PS3. By console standards, it's a schmorgers(sp?) board of customisation. As for "your" weapons being everywhere, well, this fight is on home turf. Of course CELL are going to have the same weapons.

Was it good? Also, I just finished AC:B. I think it was mostly a waste of time and didn't really further the story much. I still really like AC but this game was more of a cash in than an addition to the series. I'm starting in on Alpha Protocol now. So far I like it. Yip. A lot of games say "You can run and gun or you can sneak about." But this is one of the few games where I felt that was true. Stealth or Armour lead you down two very different ways to play, and the TAC Map highlights them for you. The AI is D-U-M-B. Or rather, the path-finding sucks. Never seen so many troops bumping in to each other. The game uses verticality really well. As long as there has been a jump button in FPS's people have been trying to get on top of stuff. Crysis does it very well, the clambering is cool, makes you feel like a big ol' gorilla. I love that you can customise your weapons and fine-tune your suit on the fly. It makes the entire game feel more "tactical" and less "Here's a silenced rifle, this is the part of the game where you can be sneaky. Here is a shotgun, this is the run'n'gun section." I never played Crysis or Warhead, but the game does a decent job of filling in some of the backstory, though I imagine it is much more rewarding for knowing all the details. Multiplayer is great fun. I rarely feel like my deaths were cheap, often I'll die because I went from stealth mode, started shooting and forgot to activate armour mode, making my aim shoddy and my body squishy (and dead). That you have to actually go and collect dogtags (by walking over your vanquished enemy) means snipers (who have a massive advantage by virtue of the Stealth mode) are not able to dominate with killstreak rewards. Unfortunately there is an upgrade that automatically collects dogtags, so eventually that will change.

Wouldn't they just get invented by someone else?

Sorry, been away from this thread for a while. Sure it's morally acceptable. It's still technically an infringement of the laws against circumventing © protection, but yeah. In fact, I'd say that if you own the physical version of a product on a system then I'd have no problem with you pirating it to have a digital version on the same system (pirating a PC version when you own the PS3 version I'd be less comfortable with). In fact a certain game publisher who shall rEmain nAmeless is quite keen to have a solution whereby you buy access to content once and can then access it from any platform in any form. The problem is that the industry can't tell the honest pirates from the dishonest ones, and businesses (mine in particular) have a habit of seeing and working on the basis of worst case scenarios. As such, (almost) every download is seen as a dishonest pirate and a lost sale. Before you point out how ridiculous it is to assume that, bear in mind that you have little / no more proof that a number of pirates are honest than they do that they are not.

5'10" ish.

Well, that's ok then.

Hold SQUARE or X(?) depending on your console to grab a dude. Press R1 or RT to throw them, longer press = longer throw.

Hehehe.

Yeah, I know that. When I was talking about the market and EA, it was to do with the game as a whole. Ok... how can I put this... I know for a fact that EA are not directly responsible for the content of the game. Any design choices, art choices anything that wasn't the box, the marketing or the delivery of the product were made by Crytek. EA advised and supported Crytek where requested but the multi player, the single player, the menus, were all developed by Crytek. The game as a whole would have been developed the way it was with or without EA's involvement, the market can take their share of the "blame" (if that's the right word) though.

Just for the record, the games EA publishes on behalf of external developers, they often have little or no creative control over. They don't set or enforce release dates, they don't directly control content and while they offer support where requested they most certainly are not responsible for the actual multiplayer code of a title. Many times EA will be responsible only for packaging, marketing and shipping a title and sometimes EA will literally only be responsible for putting the finished product in crates and transporting it where it needs to be. Yeah, you're right and I'm probably wrong but I have a feeling EA played more than a facilitatory role in the development of Crysis 2. EA didn't develop the multiplayer, nor are they responsible for servers. MS and Sony are responsible for the servers on their platforms, Crytek for PC.

Just for the record, the games EA publishes on behalf of external developers, they often have little or no creative control over. They don't set or enforce release dates, they don't directly control content and while they offer support where requested they most certainly are not responsible for the actual multiplayer code of a title. Many times EA will be responsible only for packaging, marketing and shipping a title and sometimes EA will literally only be responsible for putting the finished product in crates and transporting it where it needs to be.

I agree with Ethan. 3D is a "nice to have" just as colour was a nice to have. Eventually the way 3D is used will have a significant impact on story telling. To extend the colour analogy (suck it Dean) the Matrix used blue for the "Real" world and green for "The Matrix". In Tron Legacy the "Real" world was in 2D and the "Grid" was in 3D. Some films do interesting things with colour, The Sixth Sense in varying degrees of subtlety, the aforementioned Matrix and Pan's Labyrinth, Schindler's List. However most films (or at least most Hollywood films) do that Blue/Orange thing to vary levels of absurdity (see the A-Team for a particularly bad offender).

Call it ridiculous if you like, those are the rules you agree to every time you install a game. Not saying I agree with the practice, but they are operating within the terms of the agreement.

I have a total boner for Bridges. Lebowski, Trons, True Grit... awesomeness.