Thursday Next

Little Big Planet.

This didn't need to be anything more than a "Screen grab" article. The padding is beyond obvious.

http://kotaku.com/5747480/two-words-helping-overthrow-a-government/gallery/ Why, thank you ThursdayNext for bringing this to our attention, that'd make a nice little filler article article on a slow news day. We appreciate the tip. http://kotaku.com/comment/36360470/ Arseholes.

Which, incidentally is a load of crap. I will tip a minimum of 10% even if service is distinctly ordinary. If you want a huge tip then you need to do something beyond taking my order, dropping off my food and clearing the decks, your employer already pays you to do that, I'm not going to. Doing something to stand out, like a personal recommendation on what is good to eat there (not the robotic version where you've been told to upsell whatever crap is going out of date). Checking if I need a refill when I'm down to the last 25% of my drink (not half an hour after I've emptied it and am gasping like a fish out of water). Noticing when I am ready to pay and leave, and not leaving me sitting around waiting for you to rock up with a card reader when you can be bothered, little things like that will get you a significantly better tip. That said, I'm not big on tipping bar staff. Pouring a pint and putting it on a doily is not some sort of amazing level of service that automatically entitles you to stick another couple of dollars on top of what is quite likely an already overpriced, substandard drink, I will however give a decent tip if I've ordered a round for half a dozen people and you're able to do it pleasantly, accurately and efficiently.

The plate stacking is, I think considered more weird. The glasses thing, just less than usual. The returning glasses thing, I think some staff find it a bit... rude perhaps? Like they infer that I am saying "You should have cleared the glasses from my table, now I have to do it." as opposed to "As I am going to the bar to get more drinks, I may as well take the empty ones up there with me."

Ok, now, if this is Kindle style 3G. i.e. no fees to pay. I'd consider it even at $400. If there's some sort of monthly plan...not so much.

I think the biggest barrier to entry for console piracy is that you have to give your console and some money to a shady character who flouts the law and expect them to return it to you, in working order, with the modification. That's a pretty big leap of faith imho. I mean what are you going to do if the guy doesn't do the mod. He just takes your money, opens the case, voids your warranty and sends it back. You gonna go to the police and say "The guy I asked to illegally mod my console has ripped me off!"? Even if you get your money back, your warranty is toast.

All volumes must be even numbers and/or multiples of five. When out in restaurants I always stack the menus the right way up before handing the pile back to the waiter / waitress. I flinch if they pick them up and some are upside down or rotated through 180 degrees or what have you. My friends know this and will purposely mis-stack menus and refuse to let me have them so as to annoy me. I also stack plates when everyone has finished eating and always return emptie glasses to the bar when getting a round in or leaving. That last one is because I used to live in a pub. When in the UK this is normally acknowledged by the staff, but not considered "odd". When I did this in a restaurant in America the manager (who happened to be serving our table) asked me if I wanted a job. I'm not 100% convinced he was joking.

Need to see a price. That's about all I'm waiting on. This definitely has me more interested than the 3DS though.

Haha....yeah. Just about about videogames. Seriously, I do love how everyone rolls their eyes at yet another dull, brown, shooter like CoD and BF. Take the mick out of Gears for it's ridiculous attempt at serious characterisation, then get all snooty when a game comes along and says, how many ways do you wanna kill this dude? I don't think it's still in the game, but one of the early versions had a great MP map where you were at a nuclear weapon test facility. Every few minutes an alarm would sound and you had like 15 seconds to get to a bunker before it sealed shut. You'd be in the middle of a firefight then be scrambling to the nearest bunker only to find you were the only red guy in a room full of blues. Hilarity and explosive death ensued until the dust settled and the bunkers opened again and the survivors stepped out. Anyone caught outside died in a nuclear holocaust. Fun times.

I lost my star by linking someone who was kissing Crecente's arse to the Mirriam-Webster entry for "Sycophancy". Also this exchange: http://kotaku.com/comment/34511888 (No, I don't like Crecente, not one bit.)

I love Crank. Guilty pleasure.

Really glad that Staysick picked up on the not taking itself seriously thing. I try not to evangelise about my companies games too much, but I do think Bulletstorm is a significant break from the norm. Melee combat is actually enough fun that you don't mind running low on ammo cos it just means that you get to focus on kicking and leashing enemies into hazards. The whole game is obscene in every respect, the violence the machismo it's all turned up to the max, it's totally brutal fun with none of the melodrama of Reach or at least not that I've seen. It's pretty much the "Crank" of video games.

The game does tension so well. It teaches you early on that enemies can come from any direction and there's rarely a time that you can retreat down a corridor, but your back to a wall and take your enemies out without the nagging feeling that something is going to either crash through the vent behind you or drop down on you from above. They've also got that "something in the walls" sound perfected so you never really feel totally safe. And finally, areas with save points and benches and stores would normally be considered "safe" areas. Not so in DS1. It really keeps you off balance.

C-c-c-c-combo Breeeaaaakeeerrrrrr was one of the most joyous sounds in fighting game history.

I liked Eternal Champions for the backstories (I was young at the time!). I also quite enjoyed KI Gold. My fave unappreciated fighters were Fighter's Destiny and Bushido Blade. I loved that those games both had an instant KO. Also, getting the final boss in Bushido blade was frickin' hardcore.

OBJECTION! It's Metallica.

So it was... I coulda sworn I checked. I definitely saw your post and didn't see Ico. Ho hum!

I have high hopes for the new Bloom and Knightley-less Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.

Depending on which time you faced that boss, it could be really cheap. However, the bosses were the only times (outside of monster hunts) where you got to really play with the paradigm system.

"Tag: The Power of Paint" it's the tech demo that got the devs picked up by Valve. It'll give you something of an idea of what you can expect in Portal 2. The game sites link is no longer active, you can find the developer here: https://www.digipen.edu/studentprojects/tag/ the download can be found by using that there Google.

No love (well hate) for... Especially compared to...

Here's the trailer, for all your catchy uppy needs. (It's spoiler heavy - obvs). http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/32451

There's a trailer on PSN that basically summarises the plot of the first one in about 2mins. It leaves out specific details of what happened to Kendra and Hammond. But at least you'll know roughly what happened on Ishimura and why /how Isaac got where he is. Apparently he does talk in this one. Though I didn't mind/notice that he was silent in the first one.

Haha, Arch is easily the most negative entity in all of Kotaku-dom. Even when he says something good he has to suffix it with something bad. Personally, I'm looking forward to Dual-wielding Move controllers in Extraction.