Thursday Next

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 The game sites link is no longer active, you can find the developer here: https://www.digipen.edu/studentprojects/tag/ the download can be found by using that there Google.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.

Epic Space Battles! Armies! Just two of the things you won't see much of in this film! At least it isn't spoilerific I guess... Also, very glad that special edition artwork tends to veer away from Orange/Blue-itis.

I smile as she cries out.

If I were to actually accuse you of something, I'd be pretty obvious about it instead of trying to include you in an explanation as to why pirates are generally so overly defensive. For example, in my last post I'm accusing you of not reading my post properly. In the one before that I'm accusing you of ad hominem (as I've already admitted, pretty foolishly) and of pretty terrible psychoanalysis. Ok, this is getting a little personal and I didn't intend that. I incorrectly inferred that your description of white knight, codblop, sheeple was directed at me. For that I apologise. As for the Robert Ebert thing, a rebuttal is not a generally defensive attitude. It was a direct response to an accusation. If you are asked the (debatable given the negative connotation of the word "pirate") neutral question "Do you pirate games?" and the response is "Yes, but..." and then some form of excuse, it implies, or rather, I infer, that you are of the belief that piracy is either wrong or at least perceived as wrong by the person asking, or the audience listening to your response. If someone said "Have you heard the latest Muse song?" I would reply "Yes." If you said "Have you heard the latest Justin Bieber song?" I would reply "Yes, but only because I was getting a lift to the station from my younger sister and she had it on in the car." I don't feel the need to defend listening to Muse because they are awesome on a stick. I feel the need to defend hearing a Bieber song because I know that listening to it is morally wrong. Admittedly this speaks more to my mentality than to that of every other person in the world, but as I'm the only person whose thoughts I can read, I kind of have to project that attitude onto the wider populace even if it is inaccurate.

Yup. More details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12275913

Yup. I just love that they aren't being allowed to wriggle out of it now that they have court expenses looming and (presumably) less than brilliant chances of winning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12253746 A lot of people have accused ACS Law of basically trying to bully pirates for cash without any intention of going through court proceedings. The ACS gambit is to send you a letter, tell you that they're going to sue you on behalf of the copyright holders agents, and try to sting you for ~£500. Well, 26 people have gone to to court with them and now they are dropping all the cases. Or at least attempting to. The Judge in one of those brilliant moments of making a lawyer squirm because he can is making it very difficult for ACS / Mediacat (the Copyright holders agent in these cases) to back out of what they presumably believe to be a losing battle. Judge Birss: "I want to tell you that I am not happy. I am getting the impression with every twist and turn since I started looking at these cases that there is a desire to avoid any judicial scrutiny," I don't really agree with the lawyer acting for ACS getting death threats and such, that's going OTT, but the database leak could cost the firm a LOT of money, which would be delicious justice.

The whole article is pointless. JRPG's are plenty popular in the West. They just aren't CoD or WoW popular. As I said in my Kotaku comments, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest all sell like hot cakes in the West. It's like saying that Haze is proof that FPS's are unpopular because the sales were low, but you're not allowed to count CoD, Battlefield or Halo as proof of FPS popularity because they are popular even when they are crap.

I too dislike Dickens. I find his writing style laboured to the point where everything feels padded out to no avail. Orwell's prose is in contrast to this much more to the point. I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of personal taste though, so keep flying the flag you Dickens lovers out there.

Going to jump in here and defend the Bad Company 2. For disclosure's sake I work for EA. 1. BC2 nickel and dimes you for recycled maps. - No they don't anyone who buys the game new gets the extra map modes. 2. BC2 DLC is "mandatory". - While there is a disconnect between VIP owners and non VIP owners, take into account why this is. Non VIP folk have not paid EA DICE to play, so it's not entirely unreasonable to hold back some content from them. - The SPECACT kit is purely cosmetic. While it may give you an advantage if you are a Russian medic, it is generally not an essential update. 3. VIP (online pass) is wrong to try to reduce trade ins. - You say that it puts a "tiny dent" in EA profits. This is untrue. If our largest retailer's profit is ~35% used sales then that presents a sizeable amount of income that EA is missing out on. It's only natural to try to make first purchase a more attractive prospect, even if that has the effect of making used purchases less desirable. Also bear in mind that this should reflect in the resale value of used games. If $10 worth of content is lost when the game is used then the used game should be over $10 less. It's then up to the purchaser if they want the extra content. 4. Publishers bully developers. - "There is strong evidence that EA pushed Bioware to scale back the sexuality in Mass Effect 2, and that they interfered with the production and creative direction of Medal of Honor." What evidence? Also, bear in mind that both these examples are ones that created a furore in the media. I can tell you now that EA tries to give their developers as much leeway as possible while keeping developers informed of the potential consequences of their actions. For example, early versions of "Saboteur" had numerous Swastikas throughout in all versions. The publisher informed the developer that this is contrary to German, Hungarian and other EU states law (and can lead to criminal sanctions). The developer then decided to remove them in softened versions. Would you prefer that the publisher just signed the checks without looking at the product? 5. Publishers do not support old titles. - See the link for services that are being shut down. http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates Many of these games are being shut down not because EA has a new game to support, but because the games have fallen into disuse, or because licenses have expired. Resources are finite and supporting ~1% of a global online community just does not make sense. I will however agree that for PC titles at least EA could release server code to allow people to keep communities going indefinitely. Also, not sure what ikiddo means about BFBC2 online being a "mess" stats can be a bit flaky lately (but that's being fixed) otherwise it all works fine for me. I rarely have laggy matches or drop connection or what have you. Maybe that's because I'm on PS3 and hardly anyone plays online cos it haz no gaems?

Approves this post.

Ok, in that hypothetical realm, where someone would not by the game under any circumstances, then yes, they have not "hurt" the developer directly. However, as there is no way for the developer to know what the pirate is thinking they will look at that download as forming part of the "demand" for the title and as such will perceive that download as a loss. A form of psychological hurt if you will. Please keep your quite frankly terrible psychoanalysis out of this. "He's defending himself, so he's got to be guilty"? We try to explain it because nobody likes having every white knight on the internet pointing fingers and going "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT YOU EVIL FUCKER!" Especially when said white knights then stand in line paying overprice for fucking CODBLOPS, a game Activision has now released three times (CoD4, MW2 and BLOPS) in the span of four years and are sucking incredible ammounts of cash out of the industry. Cash that could have been used to fund untold interesting games. The mainstream games industry is bloated as fuck and it's attempts to try and make it seem like our friends while shoveling out games made to specification in order to gain a sale from the mindless sheep are incredibly weak. In comparison to the state of the mainstream games industry, fucking Hollywood looks relatable. I purchase what games I can afford - too many, in fact - and then I get demonized for wanting to look around and try games out before deciding which ones to support. Insulted by CODBLOPS-buying sheep. ---- EDITED because I realized I wasn't quite done and doubleposting is evil ---- By the way, if we're gonna use ad hominem, then why are white knights so eager to stand up and put blame on everyone? Is it because, maybe, deep inside, they know that paying for overproduced, overpriced games designed not out of artistic joy, but out of a desire to make a profit, really isn't as morally pure as they want it to be? But, of course, that would be a completely retarded line of reasoning. It wasn't ad hominem, an ad hominem attack is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. Where the premise is that "Piracy is morally wrong." the belief of a pirate is a key part of the premise as "morally wrong" is a totally subjective attribute. I merely cited that the fact that almost everyone who admits to piracy does so with a caveat of "but only to demo it", "because games are too expensive", or some such excuse indicates that pirates feel guilt on some level and therefore also feel that piracy is at least a morally grey area if not black and white wrong. On the other hand, your suggestion that in one part of my post I used an ad hominem attack and am a "CODBLOPS sheep" and a white knight and as such my thoughts on the issue are to be struck from the record are themselves ad hominem and do not invalidate the rest of my argument even if any of the accusations were true. No one in this thread said anything about pirates being "evil fuckers", there really is no need to go shouting and swearing. I also never said that anyone who was defending themselves "was guilty" I said that they accept that what they are doing is in some way wrong. I am not white knighting, I have never said that game publishers are altruists, and I have never owned a copy of Black Ops, in fact, the last CoD I bought was CoD4 MW.