Thursday Next

Loved hearing Journey kick in when the dude in Tron: Legacy turned on the arcade. I think I was the only one in the cinema who knew that Journey had done a song other than the one that they copied from Glee.

The DLC included as part of DA2 is Project 10 Dollar. There's no point doing an online access code for DA2 because it's single player. Don't see why you are happy with first purchaser content for DA2 but not an Online Pass for online multiplayer titles. It's the same thing. Buy it new, get everything, get it second hand and you have to pay for the extras. As to why DLC is released early, it's basically to convince people to hang on to their copy of the game as long as possible. A lot of people complete games in the first week, sometimes first day of release. Unless it is like BFBC2 or GT5 with plenty of depth and replay value and online you're going to get a lot of trade ins, which reduces the publishers profit (but not the retailer's of course bloody Chewie s.o.b.) when the market is flooded with second hand copies.

1. I didn't say he was wrong. I said he was being a prick. 2. QA aren't "low cost", they are "low paid". QA costs a significant amount because while the individual wages are pathetic, even internally billed QA man hours are quite high (£30 - £70/QA Man Hour depending on the specific test group... functional, certification, etc.). 3. You need to increase QA hours by a huge amount to capture and fix a high number of graphical issues. Graphical Issues (especially minor ones like dodgy textures and screen tearing) are waaaaaay down the bottom of the ladder when it comes to bug severity, so even if hundreds of people are on a project, they will be focussing on more serious errors like networks falling down, crashes, hangs and so forth. 4. With regard to his comment about "doing some basic QA on PC" to prevent shoddy ports. It is impossible to test every configuration of hardware and software on public PC's, especially when a lot of that software will never be formally supported (like virtual DVD drives and such). It's not QA's or Epic's fault, it's just an issue inherent with PC as a platform. 5. If you had an infinite number of QA staff working for an infinite amount of time, they wouldn't make the graphics (or the game) better. They can only spot what is broken and ask Dev to fix it. If the graphics, controls, audio, storyline etc. are lame by design then that is how they will stay. In summary. Jon should never speak about QA. I do agree that Noelviga is not 100% on the money. Selling games for £150, while great for developers and publishers, won't necessarily mean better games. A number of times the publisher I worked for tried throwing loads of people and money at a project to get it done quicker and up to standard. It doesn't work. In game development Time > Money.

Prefer Separate Ways tbh.

Dragon Age DLC, much like FallOUt DLC generally gives you a fairly decent bang:buck ratio. There's normally new areas, new characters and additional voice work so most people don't feel ripped off. Unlike MW2 dropping the same maps in the same engine into a new game and charging you £15 for the pleasure.

Jonathan Blow's next game 'The Witness'? Although that's an island not just a desert. Journey. By "That Game Company" of FlOwer and FlOw FaMe.

She's been a bit mental of late so...

@CyberRat: Jon's being a prick. QA are one of the most undervalued, underpaid departments in the industry. No one in QA in the games industry is in it for the money. I left an office job on £18k to get a job in QA for £12k, one of my former colleagues recently left his QA role (he was on ~18k after 7 years in the job - yay progression!) to get a job testing financial software and immediately got a salary over twice that. Everyone who hasn't done QA thinks it's a doss, that you cock around all day playing games, well that's bullshit. It's a job that requires a lot of expertise to do well and you NEVER get thanked for it (dev always get pissy when you "break their game" rather than being thankful that you saved them from releasing a broken piece of shit). Seriously, don't fucking rag on QA.

Most anticipated? Call bias if you will, but BF3 all the way.

2 x iDevice, but no Android. Tut tut. I've just got a PSP, PS3, DS lite and HTC Desire HD. I do have a PC/Laptop and I do play some games on it (mostly BSG Online) but I don't really consider it a gaming machine.

Was just looking at some old Portal stuff when I stumbled upon this...

Oh yeah. Blur was quite a fun "racer" too. That does split screen. I love split screen!

...says "hi" Pisses me off. WoW is the only sustainable MMO. EVE says "Hi". No it doesn't, it doesn't say anything. Also, the CSI meme. *Takes off glasses* Needs to die in a fire. (especially when suffixed by) YEEEEAAAAH! I fucking hate it.

http://www.ubi.com/UK/Games/Info.aspx?pId=9414 (Sorry, had to be done). Trine is a good coop game, not too fast paced and very team-worky. If she's into the rough stuff then Shank is a pretty cool side scrolling beat/shoot 'em up. Little Big Planet is an obvious choice too.

Back to the tilde thing. What effect does "~" Have on "Kawaii desu~!" or what ever it was...

So wait... they are capturing your address from your credit card and they are storing that information? Can you even capture that data from an in store CC transaction? How does she know (or rather, why does she suspect) that GameStop are doing this?

That's a rough one to answer. As I moved through the story mode I did a whole lot of bitching, mainly about the controls and how they often didn't seem to work quite as intended. While I loved the visual setting, enjoyed the characters, and wasn't repelled by the storyline (though not exactly roped in either), I'd have to say that the game at times came off as more of a cautious endeavor, not quite as robust as I'd have liked, but rather a promise of a strong future to come, sort of like the first Assassin's Creed. There were definitely some memorable moments, some from repetition, though several just from being exciting from a presentational and gameplay standpoint. While the controls sort of clicked for me at some point while going through the (sometimes mercilessly frustrating) time trials/speedruns after the game was complete, I can't say that they will ever click for most people who don't have the patience to sit and struggle with the game like the way I did. People shouldn't have to work that hard or rely on chance for basic functions to perform as they are supposed to, this was a serious shortcoming on the part of the game. Anyway, to answer simply: I enjoyed it a lot eventually, but I can't say I recommend the game to just anyone, or that I even think it's that great. A bit of a flawed execution, but still worth it if one is willing to put the work in. For an actual short answer: At under £10, it is definitely worth picking up. http://www.play.com/Search.html?searchtype=allproducts&searchsource=0&searchstring=mirrors+edge

Apologies to Advent for totally jacking his (her?) thread... Here is an initial spec up of what I think I need for a gaming PC (thanks to Raz and some other Steamers for their input)... does anything seems under powered or massively overpowered? It's coming in a little shy of my £1k absolute maximum... so I've got some wiggle room. P.S. I probably won't start buying components till July at the earliest, maybe more like Sept/Oct. Looking to have it up and running by 1st November for absolutely no apparent reason. CPU: AMD Phenom™ II X6 1055T Six-Core CPU MOTHERBOARD: Asus M4N98TD EVO AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI Chipset DDR3 ATX w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394, SATA-II, RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI (runs up to 1600MHZ) MEMORY: 4GB (2x2GB) PC16000 DDR3/1800mhz Triple Channel Memory (Kingston Hyper X Blu Series Series w/Heat Spreader) VIDEO CARD: ATI Radeon HD 5870 PCI-E 16X 1GB DDR5 Video Card Power Supply: Cyberpower 700watt Gaming Power Supply Hard Drive: 640GB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD Optical Drive: LG CH10LS20 10X BLU-RAY/HD-DVD Reader / DVD±R/±RW Writer SOUND: Creative Labs SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio 24-BIT PCI Sound Card

Ok...so more specific questions, thanks Dean for the help so far... Motherboards: Do I need SLI? (By "need" I mean "want"). CPU: Is Intel vs AMD pretty much a Pepsi vs Coke decision? If so, AMD seem cheaper so that's a no-brainer. RAM: Is more RAM better than faster RAM or vice versa? For example would you rather have 8GB @ 1800mhz or 16GB at 1333mhz? GPU: Am I better off getting one NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2GB 16X PCIe Video Card or two NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 1GB 16X PCI Express? This is gonna get expensive... Oh and hard drives. Is it worth having a solid state OS drive and a non-solid state data drive?

And you got play it?? You fuckin' bastard! What did you get to try out? MP? Early thoughts? New game-mechanic? Deets, man! I tried a map of MP and an SP demo. I can't really give away details I'm afraid. The mp map is huuuuuuge. The single player looks amazing. Keep your eyes on GDC coverage.

BF3, Battlefield 3, the Battlefield 3 that is not out yet but is the subject of the current conversation. I'm not at GDC, but I did meet Ray Mears on a flight from Stockholm to Heathrow last Saturday.

I too am looking to build a gaming "rig" as I believe the parlance goes. I'm kind of getting that the most critical things are CPU, GPU and RAM (as these are the numbers that everyone raves about) but what else is important? Are specific motherboards great and others arse? How important is the PSU? Does one need an epic sound card or will any one suffice? And, most importantly, where is the best place to buy all this stuff (in the UK for me)?

Ok... so I've tried out an early MP build and the SP demo, and I've got to say... I NEED to get a rig for this. It's ages since I gamed on a PC, the last two games being BF2 and 2142, but this is just... wow. Look out for me posting on the "So... what do I need to build a PC" topics in the near future.

True enough. In that case... anyone from the UK or a jobless American?

Back-handed compliment of the week.