Thursday Next

Sorry, Dex. Gripe: Fundraising sucks balls. "Will you please buy this raffle ticket for a prize you will never win?" Especially when suffixed with "It's just a bit of fun!" Buying a slip of paper with a three digit number on it is not fun. If I got off on having numbered pieces of paper and hearing my number called out I'd go hang out at the local deli counter where they give them out for free and I am guaranteed to have my number called out eventually.

My god. I gave up on that Platinum a looooong time ago.

I was being facetious. It's just as likely that they want to push this video out to Xbox & PS3 and this way they can just do the one version without any first party issues.

Was this a racist thing or an anti-journalist thing? Either way it's bad form, but I do wonder if s/he just wanted to call a media representative an animal and was deeply unfortunate in his choice of victim.

I *love* the Beck Sound Shapes™ levels. Especially "Touch the People".

I always think in $ when it comes to stuff like that. Part of the job really.

@1:18. 1:20 Blurry controller/button prompts. Next gen version confirmed! Ooooh! 2 hours of cinematics! Hideo Kojima laughs at your pathetic attempts to big up your non-playable cut-scene numbers, as much as a hollywood movie(!) Pah! Overall, the style and tone is reminiscent of those really cheap documentaries about building great big diggers that are used in open cast mines.

@Ethan and Cowboy RE: Uncharted Golden Abyss

Second episode was much better. Bring on Saturday!

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Most of the cost is in creating the game, the art the physics, the audio. Sending it down pipes or putting it in boxes is a tiny fraction of the cost. So you should pay for the content, like Amazon does with Kindle. Same book on iPad, Kindle hardware, PC, Android etc. You pay for the content. Of course the problem is the "platform". For Amazon, "Kindle" is the platform, the platform exists on various types of hardware. For games, the platform and the hardware are synonymous. Much as everyone likes to rag on EA (not always without good cause), they would actually like Origin to become Kindle for videogames. You buy your game direct from Origin, and it gets delivered to whatever you want wherever you want it. There's a few obstacles to that of course (namely Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo). You have to start somewhere, so would be nice if it was at least "Buy on console > get free PC version" for now, since there are fewer hurdles there. Heck, you don't even have to give people a Steam or Origin code if you're not into either of those. The GOG version of the Witcher 2 is DRM-free and is basically given to you if you bought it anywhere else (like Steam). Maybe as we go farther into the digital age, console manufacturers will be forced to resort to this, but right now, they have the luxury of going "No deal." Heck, we can't even get cross-platform gameplay working properly because of these disputes... I'll suggest that. See how it goes. It should be perfectly doable to put an Origin code in a console box. Especially when the redemption rate won't come anywhere near 100%.

As did I.

I think there's a very good case here for not having a trial by jury. A panel of expert judges with a lot of experience in patents would have been much better placed to make an impartial decision. I'm fine with getting 12 random people in a room to say "This looks a hell of a lot like that and I would be confused as to who made what." not so much with the technical aspects of a 3G technology patent. I get the impression that the jury were bored with this case and just blitzed through the questions to get it done and dusted. I don't think they were necessarily totally Apple biased despite stuff about "sending a message" I mean, they awarded Apple less than half of what they were asking for and even then, there's some inconsistencies with what they awarded as Dean pointed out.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Most of the cost is in creating the game, the art the physics, the audio. Sending it down pipes or putting it in boxes is a tiny fraction of the cost. So you should pay for the content, like Amazon does with Kindle. Same book on iPad, Kindle hardware, PC, Android etc. You pay for the content. Of course the problem is the "platform". For Amazon, "Kindle" is the platform, the platform exists on various types of hardware. For games, the platform and the hardware are synonymous. Much as everyone likes to rag on EA (not always without good cause), they would actually like Origin to become Kindle for videogames. You buy your game direct from Origin, and it gets delivered to whatever you want wherever you want it. There's a few obstacles to that of course (namely Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo).

It's worth playing Psychonauts just to experience the Milkman Conspiracy.

OnLive thing is deeply shady. They filed for a sort of bankruptcy (it's more complex than that but in layman's terms it works). That meant they could get rid of all the staff with a stake in the company without having to pay out any equity since the company was worth effectively $0. Then some of the original investors, the ones who think that only they deserve to cash in on a sale of OnLive, bought the company out of administration using another company they set up. They are now rehiring some of the people they sacked, but this time, the re-hires get a salary, but no shares in the company they helped build. So when it is sold the few people who set up the purchasing company get to keep all the money. I've also heard rumours that some people may be hired back on an equity only basis. That is that you work for a percentage of the company if / when it is sold and get no salary, which helps make the company look profitable, but given what just happened you'd have to be an idiot to work for potentially worthless shares in a company.

Sweden could take the wind out of his sails pretty easily by simply heading over to the Ecuadorian Embassy. Interrogating him and charging him.

There's definitely a lot of political posturing going on. Ecuador would probably not have granted asylum so quickly if the UK government hadn't reminded them that the they could revoke diplomatic immunity and storm the place. Once the UK gov't did that the Ecuadorians had no choice but to grant asylum really. Otherwise they would have looked weak. Similarly, Sweden can't admit that they only want Assange in custody so that they can pony him up to the US or they will look like America's lackeys and the US can't admit that they want him to be extradited from Sweden or else Sweden would be forced to refuse extradition to avoid looking like lackeys. So basically there's a massive stalemate between Ecuador, UK, Sweden and US with no one wanting to look bad. Apart from the UK because everyone already knows that we do what the White House asks most of the time anyway. As for the US being able to disappear him if they wanted to, I think Assange is too high profile for that. If he mysteriously vanished it would only serve to further tarnish America's reputation and make any attempts to preach to China about human rights even more futile than it already is. Honestly I reckon the best solution to this (from a domestic perspective) is that the UK "accidentally" let Assange slip out of the country and on a plane to Ecuador. Then we can't send him to Sweden, Sweden can't send him to the US and we all get to blame Ecuador for abusing Diplomatic Privilege while keeping our Human Rights records shiny and clean. The US don't get their man, but they have effectively exiled him so it's not a total bust.

Seems to be without merit. Perhaps Stardock could have done with making the word Rebellion a little less prominent. But really, just a change to the logo is all I'd award if I were judging.

I was in a bar the other night. Ordered a Raspberry and Lychee Martini. Now that is a man's drink!

Yeah, I was trying to tread softly about the actual circumstances. I mean it is convenient that they both popped up to accuse him almost simultaneously, and as you say, there was no hint of any issues immediately after the alleged offence. Could be that he acted inappropriately with one or the other or both of them, in which case he should of course face charges and take whatever punishment is due... In Sweden. I just don't get why more people aren't more angry about this. It's three major first world governments seeking to skirt around international law to get rid of someone that they feel is a trouble maker. If the US want him they should just straight up ask the UK to extradite him. If Sweden want to pass him to America then they shouldn't pull this rape accusation BS. And the UK should not be playing piggy in the middle. It's pathetic.

Thanks to some sabre rattling from the UK, Ecuador has granted Assange political asylum. The whole situation is farcical. A brief re-cap: - He has not been charged with any crime (though he has been accused of sexual assault). - The Swedish authorities only want to question him (allegedly). - The Ecuadorian government offered to allow the Swedish investigators to enter their embassy and question him. The Swedish government refused. - The Ecuadorian government offered to send Assange over if the Swedes would promise not to hand him over to America. The Swedes refused. - The British government is threatening to revoke Ecuador's diplomatic immunity and grab him anyway. And all this over a bunch of emails about how the ambassador from Spain looks a little chubby these days.

I hope they avoid the mistakes made in Assassin's Creed. The missions could be pretty repetitive if it is a case of getting to the target and "remixing" them over and over. Also agree with Ethan definitely want multiple solutions to the remixes. I quite liked the way this one built up. But it would be good if you could perform multiple actions at once. For example, knocking over the bottle and removing the safety. Without having to replay each time. Perhaps that will be an ability you unlock later in the game? Also agree with Masterdex. It seemed a little off. "You want me to kill a guy! No way, that's against my morals." "Oh no no no. We just want you to trick him into killing himself." "Okey dokey!" I get from a narrative point of view that key people need to die. Perhaps there will be side missions where you can get people to rethink their lives rather than killing them? Not sure how big the game is meant to be. 8 hours action adventure game or 30 hour action RPG game?

Sony are annoyingly vague/cryptic with their error messaging. If you are going to spit out a code, you might as well drop in a line about what is wrong. Admittedly, this would require localisation and such which is probably why it doesn't happen.

Soundshapes is brrrrrrrrilliant! Can't wait to spend hours making rubbish rubbish levels that sound terrible.

It's got a pretty simple story. Which is a good thing in this case as it drives the narrative forward. Otherwise I do think it would get bogged down. The world should be pretty familiar to anyone who has read any old PKD/Asimov sci-fi stuff while still having an identity of its own.