TheMightyEthan

I'm stoked for this game, and my stoke-o-meter has not let me astray since I can remember.

I quite liked Darksiders, and without the puzzles I think I would have liked it significantly less. It's like a poor man's Zelda, which is exactly what I wanted when I bought it.

Haha, the extent of my familiarity with the theory comes from Wikipedia and TVTropes.

1) That's the first time I've ever said that. I have seen other people saying it though. 2) They didn't do The Getaway, Team Soho did. The founder of Team Bondi was the Director of Development for Team Soho, but it's not the same developer. Team Soho is now part of Sony Computer Entertainment London.

If it helps this game isn't actually being developed by Rockstar, it's developed by Team Bondi, it's just published by Rockstar. Probably doesn't help though, since this is Team Bondi's first game.

I disagree completely. Art without an audience is nothing, nor does an artist have any control of their art once it is released into the world. Just as an artist can't dictate the meaning of their art, something that wasn't even intended to be art can still be interpreted as art. Edit: I slightly misread that, I agree that quality doesn't enter into art, but intent doesn't really enter into it either. I agree that an artist loses control of their art once it's released into the world (I really like the death of the author theory), and I also agree that something that was never intended to be art can be interpreted as art. But I think in that situation the person interpreting it as art is actually the artist, they're the ones creating the "art" out of what was previously not art. So it's not necessarily the intent of the person who created the thing, it can be the intent of the person who's viewing it or using it. In the same way I think all art is participatory (which is part of why I reject the argument that the participatory nature of games makes them not art), because the person viewing/experiencing it is creating/changing its nature and what it means. I guess it just goes in to where you define the point of creation. The moon isn't art, but the person who sees meaning in it and paints it or takes a picture of it is an artist, and their painting or picture is art, they created the art out of something that was not art before. I think in the same way someone who sees art in a beer bottle or whatever is the artist, because they've created the "art" aspect of the thing, whether or not they ever share that with anyone else.

Art has nothing to do with the quality of the end product, it's about the intent that went in to creating it.

This just in: Thursday Next is secretly a teenage girl!

To be fair, Senators tend to be more reasonable than Representatives... Not that that's saying much...

Well the law in question is that it's a copyright violation to give a public performance without a license to do so. I haven't ever studied copyright law, but in the areas of law I have studied "public" usually means that basically any random person is invited to come participate, though charging a cover doesn't make something not-public, and neither does an age limit, etc. 17 USC 1 is the US copyright code, and section 101 defines a public performance as So watching a laptop on the grass in front of a dorm does fall under the literal meaning of the statute. However, I can't imagine any federal court would ever enforce it that way. The obvious intent of that definition is to prevent someone from showing a copyrighted work to a large number of people, and watching a movie on your own laptop does not implicate that purpose. The number of people who can watch a laptop at once is very limited, and if people started gathering to watch I'm sure your friend would have gotten very uncomfortable very quickly and stopped the movie or gone inside or something. So, having done a little more research, my conclusion is that one of two things happened: 1) The cop got overly literal with the term "public performance", not based on anything other than his own reading of the rule, or 2) The cop was bored and felt like being a dick. Possibly both. Also, a good rule of thumb is to take anything a cop says about what the law is with a MASSIVE grain of salt. They have an immense amount of practical experience, but almost no formal training about what the laws mean. Also, customary disclaimer: none of what I've said here is legal advice, it's all just for general discussion purposes. *Edit* - Wow, I wrote a lot more than I intended to when I started.

If the requirement of computer programming makes games not art, then no computer animated film can ever be art either. That's just silly.

I'm glad I have this uncanny ability to tell whether I'll like a game or not based on almost no information before it's even released. Only very rarely am I wrong.

See, I don't think that's true here.

lol, what happened Duke?

Were they actually charged/convicted of anything, or was it just a cop telling them to stop? If it was just a cop I'm inclined to say that that cop just didn't know wtf they were talking about, because watching a movie that you own on your laptop is perfectly fine, even if you're outside. Now, if you got one of those giant inflatable projector screen things and set it up outside the dorm, you might run into issues...

That case won't be the last we hear of it. And you're right, NEA policies aren't law, but to say that speech is unprotected under the first amendment you have to be able to say that it has absolutely no artistic, social, or scientific value whatsoever. The NEA saying it's art is very strong evidence in favor of it having artistic value.

"Frustrated" is more precise, I think. But yeah.

I don't remember the last time I paid more than like $15 for a game I ended up not liking, but a lot of that's probably because I never buy games day one unless I am absolutely 100% sure I'm going to love it.

Sounds like the Wii 2 is for you then. Also, I know I've said this before, but I would bet money that there's an optical drive in the 720.

So you just trust it without checking other review sources? BAH! No, I look at other review sources, I've just found based on my own experience that GT reviews tend to provide me the best information for determining whether I will like a game or not. Frequently GT will rate a game highly, but by their review I will be able to determine that it's not for me, or vice-versa. Also, what I'm saying is, unless I've played the game, I don't go arguing about whether GT knew what they were talking about, because unless I've played the game I don't have a fucking clue if they knew what they were talking about. This is unrelated to whether or not I look at other review sources.

Who were Adam and Eve running from in that vid though? I think the Templars are the descendants of their overlords. There overlords are the aliens. Presumably there's some alien DNA in the Assassin line, which is what makes them so badass. The Templars are just regular humans.

I don't want it to go to the "modern" time yet either, I want a new past time. There was some speculation that the next one would be during the American Revolution because of some hints at the end of the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC.

I wait for GT reviews before buying a game that I'm unsure about, because I don't want to pay $60 for something I might not enjoy. But I don't argue with other people about whether the GT review is accurate.

Even if you have friends apparently there's no easy way to join up with them for the freeplay multiplayer, only for the campaign. Also, though I like GT reviews, I usually ignore the numbers. The number at the end often (to me at least) seems to have little or nothing to do with their description of the game during the review itself.

Agreed. I meant the reviews generally, not the Joystiq one specifically.