Thursday Next

1. Yeah, we don't know the whole story in either of those cases, we know some of one side of the story. 2. Games are a service, not a product. EA don't come and take your copy of the game. Remember, you and others often argue that piracy is not stealing. Cutting off access to a service isn't stealing either.It's more like making abusive calls on your mobile and getting cut off, or your ISP cutting off your connection for violating their terms of use. 3. As has been previously stated, they can create new accounts, they can play games offline, their games have not been stolen, they can still play them, the way they can use those games has been restricted.

Riiiight. So yeah what I'm saying is, CS have been heavy handed in the past, but you need to take these people coming out of the woodwork on a case by case basis.

What? So why are gamrFeed reporting this as if he is still banned?

If it's the same guy then his ban's already been overturned hasn't it?

Yes, but this is a different ban. Isn't it?

Then saying it's not policy to do so and giving the guy access to his games after it gets brought up across a dozen gaming sites. You say CS is heavy handed, but surely if you don't give them the heavy hands to begin with then they can't do this kind of damage. If EA don't intend for a forum ban to also have you lose access to games why put that system in place? Why put any system in place at all that can revoke game access? And if they other infractions were serious enough, why not act then? And if it was based upon other activities, why let it continue to be spread that it was done over as harmless a post as "Have you sold your souls to the EA devil". So yeah, I'd love to make a judgement knowing all the facts, but as it stands EA seem quite happy to let it be known that they can and will remove access to your games and there's no clear guidelines on what will make that happen. So until EA pipe up to say that it wasn't the "have you sold your soul" comment that got him banned from forums and games, then that's the whole facts as they stand now. Isn't this a totally different guy?

Could he not mean: Don't write about a rookie soldier in WWII, write someone you know, and place them in that scenario. Don't write about WWII, write about War as a whole and set it in World War II. Games about past wars, or even near future wars are all overburdened with information. It's all country names, branches of the military and vehicles. Some areas of the industry have been striving so hard for authenticity that they have forgotten how to tell a story. Look at the games that have told great stories, Half Life, Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus. They aren't about recognisable locations. They're about creating believable worlds. Some in the industry have the two mixed up. They're more concerned with having an UH-1 helicopter in a Vietnam era game because it's authentic than they are about creating a story that makes you believe you're in Vietnam. Game designers are working too hard on making things look authentic and often miss out on making them feel real. Fumito Ueda puts it better than I ever could: "Replicating a real-life dog or cat is not impossible, but if you have a dog or cat in real life, you're always going to notice the unnatural idiosyncrasies of the virtual animal first," http://www.1up.com/news/fumito-ueda-discusses-guardian

EA hasn't contradicted themselves on this guy as yet. Also, when I refer to hacking or cracking titles, it may not be Dragon Age 2 that he did this with. It may be that the majority of his infractions were of another more serious nature on another title and that his forum post was the proverbial straw. I'm not going to say that EA are definitely in the right. I've been on record in this very forum saying that CS can be (imho) heavy handed. All I'm saying is that casting judgement without knowing the facts could leave you with egg on your face, much like the people who got the torches and pitchforks out for MS when the branded the cheating autistic kid a "cheater".

When someone is banned for numerous and severe infractions then you need to look a little deeper than one forum post. They could have a history of linking to torrents or they could be found to be playing a cracked version of the game or using hacks. They may have violated any number of EA rules, some of which you may all agree justifies his ban. Have we all already forgotten about the autistic kid who was boosting his gamerscore? Just because he looks hard done by on the face of it doesn't mean that is the case.

OK, my point is you wrote: "PS3 users got their taste of the Crysis 2 multiplayer demo just this week. Assuming you were able to play a game that is. Mere days after launching the demo, amidst connection and matchmaking issues, Crytek has just issued a statement that they are ending the multiplayer demo in the next 24 hours to “ensure all issues are resolved when the game launches next week.” Further adding that their “priority is to ensure that the final product is flawless at launch.” So, the Xbox 360 and PC get two multiplayer demos and PS3 users barely get even a week? Are PS3 players ok with that? Are you confident Crytek can fix their servers a week before launch" So you took the time to bring up that there were multiplayer demos for the other platforms, yet neglected to mention that all three had issues, giving the impression that Xbox/PC are the favoured sons while PS3 is the ginger step-child, something that is simply not the case. This is what I mean by being "lazy or dishonest". You either neglected to mention that every MP demo had been a buggy mess because (i) You were not as diligent in your reporting as you could have been. or (ii) You wanted to rile up the community for some Hit-Count whoring. P.S. Played Crysis 2 online last night, it was all working fine. We'll see how that changes when the PSU count spikes.

lrn2Kotaku... Oh... I see you already did. Eh? You mean learn from Kotaku? Saddest thing about being a "games writer?" having to do these fluff pieces (well, not this one) just for revenue. Original content gets no love, meaning, no money...Sad but true. I mean: I am disappointed that someone who (I assume as you are here) became disenfranchised with Kotaku's constant inflammatory stories with misleading headlines and a penchant for selective fact picking would apparently follow a similar path. I was using Kotaku as a verb to mean: Inflammatory, Hit Count Whoring or Generally shoddy reporting. You've got to pay the bills, I get that, I just don't like this kind of reporting. Yes, the PS3 demo was broken, but as many have pointed out, so were both the Xbox demos and the PC one. As such singling out the PS3 version for an "Uh oh inferior version" story is either lazy or dishonest.

Crysis 2. Looking forward to Multiplayer this week.

lrn2Kotaku... Oh... I see you already did.

I had the grave misfortune to catch the first 15-20 mins of "Meet the Spartans". I've never seen a worse film. Seriously. I was actually offended by what I saw. It was utterly devoid of a single moment of humour. It's like the film troughed and then just nailed itself to that level. The celebrity look-a-likes were so terrible that every single one of them had to be introduced by name. I've never been a believer in "So bad it's good." but even if I had been, this film goes all the way past "so bad it's good" and deep into "So bad that you want to kill everyone who was involved in the creation of it and the people who went to see it in the cinema thus encouraging more of this bilge." This film was unrelentingly awful. It should be banned by the Geneva convention and Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer should be tried in the Hague. If Gaddafi is captured by the rebels and they are looking for a way to torture him, I think it would be kinder to water board him than to make him watch this film for even 30 seconds. I'm going to have to watch Shawshank and the Big Lebowski simultaneously on repeat for a week just to counteract the incredible badness of this film. I could actually feel the IQ points sloughing away from my brain as the film progressed. Had I watched it for one minute longer I would probably have lacked the intelligence to identify the TV remote and been reduced to a vegetable, fortunately, I was able to change the channel in time. I've been weaning myself back on to visual media by watching the Teletubbies, by the end of the month I'm hoping that I will be able to understand the story line of Hollyoaks and in a year I should be fully rehabilitated.

I loved the remixed classical tunes on M(P)SMP. You can download them all, free (and legally) here: http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2010/06/10/monsters-probably-stole-my-princess-soundtrack/

It's a solid game. The suit adds a bit of variety though I wish they'd focussed more on stealth. Armour mode seems to last forever while you struggle to run from one piece of cover to the next in Stealth. I love how you can customise your weapons on the fly and change your suit perks about as you upgrade tem. Not played multiplayer yet. Might give it a bash this weekend.

Based on Dean's edit. I think Heavy Rain was a good choice. For NFS: HP, I enjoyed the multiplayer when I was in a race/pursuit/whatever. But actually getting there was (imho) poorly executed. Given that Hot Pursuit is a team mode, not being able to pick your team is pretty awful. I'm one of the few on PS3 who has and uses a mic for tactics as opposed to using it to introduce you all to my latest fave hip-hop track, being unable to team up with a few friends save by happenstance or planetary alignment was quite annoying.

What's your problem with the story? There were a few unanswered questions, but generally, it was well played and the reveal near the end was brilliantly executed. I know people have issues with the casting, but the story is good, imho. Perhaps it is, as you say, a matter of opinion.

I liked the way they handled the Riddler in AA. It was a cool alternative to beating the snot out of folks, a sort of Boss Battle - of wits!

@1:45 "You're the best shot." @2:03 Half the Hotel is destroyed. You could have pointed Stevie Wonder in the general direction of the hotel and the sniper would still be dead.

Drake... I am your mother. Called it. Note the date. Also, agreed on English villains. We're also really good at doing them. Finally. Head mook = Jason Statham? Discuss. P.S. I know it's not actually Statham.

Heat > Righteous Kill

Pacino > De Niro.

The legal position is well covered. Working in CS must be a bit of a bitch though. One Important thing to note. Just because EA give themselves the authority to do whatever the hell they want, it doesn't mean that it is their policy to do so. EA's legal team spend a lot of time ensuring that they cover for every eventuality, sometimes this makes their rules look onerous, but on balance, EA rarely exercise that power. There are loads of idiots on EA's forums. Plenty of them eat a ban, not all of them lose access to their games.

You rock! Also, love the name.