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Between me and my sister, it's the opposite. She sucks at FPS - I mean royally sucks. I got hold of a cheap copy of Halo 4 for her just the other day. She asked if I'd join her and I declined because it's either I play the campaign with her (and basically just get shot at a bit less but otherwise no different than alone!) or against her and win 25 to -1 (I know the scores are different now but that's the kinda score we always had in reach). She doesn't have xbox gold. I went to see how she was getting on in the campaign. Not only was she playing on easy ("I just want to appreciate the story" which is fair enough right up until she can't even tell me the name of the giant fucking UNSC ship) but as I watched she ran into the middle of a bunch of covenant, put up her hardlight shield until it ran out than then proceeded to empty an entire plasma repeater onto two jackal shields (without killing them) before being killed by the combined fire of 5 covenant with plasma pistols and a single carbine. When I mentioned "Why are you shooting at the shields?" her response was "Oh I don't like going for hands." She knows what she's doing. She has clocked up hundreds of hours on Halo games since CE, playing many many many games with me and against me. She has struggled her way through the campaigns for Halo CE, 2, 3, Reach and now 4. She has played online when she used to have xbox gold live. It's impossible to even consider she might not have experience.

Don't pre-order Wait and see how next gen looks when it comes out Make an informed decision

Honestly I would suggest getting a Nintendo Wii U. The Wii U is the newer version of the Wii (yes I know that is confusing and I never figured out why Nintendo did that). The Nintendo Wii U is the newest, simplest, and most versatile machine that you can get for the least amount of money. With the Wii U you can play the new versions of the old classics such as Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda while still being able to play the cutting edge new games such as Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty. The Wii U also gives you the option of many fun games that utilize the motion sensors on the Wii controllers. Many of the hardcore gamers on /r/gaming hate on the Wii U and there is good reason for that; The Wii U markets itself as being a "Next-Gen" console without delivering the power that the Xbox one, PS4, and PC's offer. But for people like you and your wife who are looking for a casual gaming experience that is relatively cheap, is user friendly, and gives you access to many of the popular games offered today, the Wii U is your best option. I hope my opinion was useful to you and good luck in your gaming escapades!

The whole series is kind of ruined for me, I enjoyed the shit out of AC2, and AC Revelations. I realized after playing these that they are the same game every year with updated characters and a "new" story. Everyone always rips on COD for being a cookie cutter clone of the year before, I don't think many people realize Assassins Creed is a worthless clone year after year.

I had to convert from Gamespot because of her. Nothing wrong with her as a person, but EVERYTHING has to become sexist. I'm fine with them giving it a 9/10 but when she spends one line of the review saying theres accessional pop-ins and "the story isnt great at times" then spends half the review talking about how the game is "Mechanistic" and how "the women in the game are just sex objects" makes it seem like she's taking points off because it doesn't fit her view of women right.

On the otherside of that coin some people, like myself, have gotten access to Closed Betas and has such a terrible experience that I did not buy the game after where without the beta exp I most likely would have. The CB is not all happy fun time. Your job it to break the game in any way possible, expect all your progress to be be deleted and get stuck in random potentially game breaking ways.

Chain of Memories helped set the stage for II. That's what Dream Drop Distance is supposed to do as well. And Birth By Sleep because everyone has questions, but let's add more questions when answering questions. Why not? But if you don't play BBS, then you'll probably be wondering who the two new characters and extra Roxas are when playing 3. And 358/2 Days is just to prove Roxas and Axel aren't gay.

For me, it was Cortana. Where Chief was a little quiet in the previous games, she was the personality. She was tough, funny, likeable and even when she was captured by the gravemind and being tortured for information, she still had spunk. Enter halo 4. She's this useless, crying mess of a damsel in distress who can't go ten minutes without gasping out from the terrible-ness of it all. Oh, and she's totes in love with chief at the end or something instead of being the she-bro I grew to know and love. And I get it. Rampancy. But instead of making her legitimately insane like with Spark, they made her this mopey chick who periodically throws a bitch-fit when she's having a temper tantrum.

Here's a new printer that's going to be sold for $100, and functions using some ingenious methods that mean it doesn't even have motors or microprocessors inside it. That exists. Now. Think what it will be like in 5-10 years. 20 years. It's hard to tell just how much it will change manufacturing, and consumerism as a whole, but it's going to be dramatic. Probably similar to the way the industrial era that gave us current mass production and worldwide availability of just about everything.

You, zegogz, and I should hang out. I got bond for wii from my mother in law a few years ago because my wife knows I had an Atari until I was thirteen (1996(not 2600))... Best Christmas ever. I wanted a jaguar so bad - hindsight is 20/20 - no real regrets. PS2 (phone just autocorrected to PS3) carried me through college and adulthood until my wii (2009) when I finally downloaded all those s/nes games I got to play at my well to do friends house.

Your RAM is rather low for today's gaming standards (2GB is the minimum stated for Crysis 3, 4GB is their recommended amount). While it should run fine, it'll be getting taxed relatively quick. CPU isn't terrific either, but again should be enough to run it somewhat decent. Temperature certainly could be an issue however if it runs fine for a while after a reboot, probably not as it wouldn't have had time to cool in the first place. There's a free program called Open Hardware Monitor that you can use to see your computer components statistics such as temperature, voltage usage etc. While at the moment I have a Radeon HD 7970, 8GB RAM and an i7 4770, the only thing that's different when I played Crysis 3 was the CPU and motherboard, it was an i7 3770 at the time, and it ran perfectly fine on max settings.

I see this image and think "the overall value of the beer is an average 3$ per hour worth of pleasure. But the value of a game at retail is about 60$ for 60 hours which is simplified to about 1$ per hour (not assuming replay value).

If you drink a beer faster then 1 beer an hour it would oook like this. 3$ per beer and 60 $ for the game (all numbers simplified but to be fair not too far off) A 60$ game played for an hour is 1$ per minute of play but played for 60 hours that would be 1$ spent per hour of play. If you were to buy a beer every hour you played this 60 hour long game that would be 180$ spent (3$ X 60h). If you drink 2 beers an hour for the 60 hours (the comment you made made it sound like you drink more rapidly then 1 beer per hour) that would be 320$ spent drinking alcohol while the game supplies the same times worth of fun with the better dollar value. If you are purchasing a game that contains the same 60hour content on sale. It becomes an exponential saving.

I think its harder to shoot the heart than the brain. I don't need thermal for the brain because unless I've been lied to my whole life, the brain is always in the top part of the head of an animal. The heart is in random locations and always requires thermal; at least for me it does.

Well, from what I understood, the MEC itself is literally a second body for the trooper and the plate hosts, yet again, the inputs to interface with the suit when in combat. Those mechanic limbs are detacheable, and are originally created for the sole purpose of a soldier being able to have somewhat normal life after the war is over. So basically,

Haha, you have no idea how early access works. You have the option to pay for an indie game, potentially years before it's released, participate in the beta, and receive the full version when the game is done, usually at a discount for your early support. If you want the full game, wait until the full game comes out. These offers are for people who want to help independent developers get the funding they need to get their start in the industry, but since you are clearly a jerk, you won't be doing that so you can just wait til the game comes out and bitch about it then. Do you have any idea how much video game development costs these days? It has nothing to do with not handling money well; this is what people have to do to get their start in making video games, unless they're already rich. You're helping people follow their dreams. Your attitude is the direct antithesis to the entire spirit of indie gaming.

This - the event, asking questions in front of real people, is great for those kids. Real reactions because they are being listen to, not ignored. The only downside here are the reactions to them - the people here laughing at them, the trolls going after these kids. Oh no awkward children, ATTACK! It's gross.

FYI -- there are those that say that cats "play" with their prey before they kill it for very specific and logical reasons. Active predators have it hard in the wild, in that they're constantly needing to be better than their prey. By better, I mean more competent at seeing, running and fighting with their prey animals to survive. Cats are designed with a few weaknesses and shortcomings. The most glaring one is the proximity of their eyes to their snout and mouth. A fighting prey animals can easily reach and maim, possibly even blind the cat, if it's not careful. So the cat will "toy" with a prey animal that can't run away, much like a fly fisherman will repeatedly let a fish "run" so that the line won't snap when he drags the tired fish to the surface. By allowing the animal to tire itself out trying to escape, when the cat finally makes the kill, it will be against an exhausted, defenseless meal rather than a healthy, panicked opponent.

The vast majority of bronys are self aware enough about that they treat it more as a game (I.e. how many can I drag to the dark side) than in any actual obsessive need to make you accept them. They know it's not really aimed at them (1) and they do mostly just do it to troll. It's a weird fandom as the vast majority seems to celebrate rather than hide the more questionable aspects of the community(2). The problem is that while the large figureheads of it are all just having fun and taking it about it in an incredibly silly manner, there are obsessive fans who think everyone is actually serious and no body really knows how to reduce it...or if they should even bother. Also my way to ask if someone is a fellow brony is to ask "if they watch that cartoon with horses that everyone on the internet likes?" It's worked twice already and I managed to get 20% a camera by doing it. (1) the MLP movie actually was predominantly made because of the brony herd and there is evidence to support the idea that the later seasons have been heavy on fan service. (2) they managed to get one of the shows voice actors to sing about the brony fandom and include a reference to rule 34. Also someone made a gore animation of one character brutally killing everyone, and then someone else showed it to one of the child voice actors...and the voice actor's mother.

I went to the one in Vegas with my sister. Spent about 6 hours at the convention and then spent the rest of my time at the casinos and other places. The convention wasn't actually half bad, and they had nice little indie game stations set up. You got free gift bags full of stuff. The Jinx store had like a 2 hour wait, and I spent a good 80$ at that store alone.

Diablo 3 is a really fun and great game, not too hard until you beat the game a few times and is pretty short. Only has 4 acts (excluding DLC) and each act takes about 4-5 hours to complete if you rush right through them. Playing with friends can be fun if you want something to do, but won't take you that long if both of you are slaying monsters. Sure, the loot is something that you can always look forward to, but after completing the game, you won't really want to do much more with it as you have done basically everything you can do inside the game. I personally haven't played the DLC yet but I know that it adds one more act and it wouldn't add that much more play time. All the actual gameplay aside, Diablo has one of the best, and deepest stories leading back all the way to the first Diablo game. There is tons of lore everywhere, it's sorta like a book.

Well, speaking from experience, I'd say Dark Souls. Diablo 3 is great, but if you want a rush, and a challenge, and definitely stress, the Souls (Demons Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2) series is your best bet Diablo 3's big draws are that it's very loot-centric. You'll always be progressing your character, killing off bosses, and then equipping sweet sweet loot. I'd say D3 is a bit more satisfying with how the loot works, as it's simple, and there's a feeling of accomplishment for seeing those little green "+0.8 Damage" on weapons or whatnot. That being said (and this is my opinion here, so take it for what it is) I think the DS series has better combat, and better level design. The boss battles are often very involving, and stressful. The game has a reputation for being hard but is still fair. You'll die a fair few times on bosses but every time you die you'll learn something new to last those few seconds longer to beat the boss. The way Dark Souls runs you through different emotions as you play will result in both rage, stress, PTSD, joy, and more rage, when you accidentally walk off a ledge or whatnot. The game also has a decent loot system, there's still secrets and treasure to be found, but the game isn't too loot-centric. You could use the very first outfit you have and beat the game with it if you wanted to.

Actually, the retail version contains the season pass too. I don't know about US prices, but here in the UK the game and season pass are both 16 quid if you buy them digitally. The retail version here goes for 32 quid, so accounts for both of them, but can be bought for cheaper.

Allow me to educate you, according to the wise words of Wikipedia: Capcom was developing a "weird-west" game. They were borrowing elements from Gun.Smoke, but then Capcom dropped the project in 2002. Rockstar then picked it up and changed it from weird-west to spaghetti western. So it's not a direct sequel, and it's a bit of a stretch to call it a spiritual sequel, but I guess it's possible. On the Redemption page (which is backed up here . The game was marketed and considered by its developers as a spiritual sequel. The alternative is that a game can be a spiritual sequel to a spiritual sequel, although that would make one confounded hierarchy

PS4 is more powerful, games run better on it, for the same price. Plus I think Sony ha better exclusives. microsoft exclusives are literally all aimed at "bros". Sony has games like littlebigplanet, infamous, the last of us, uncharted that are much more varied and PS+ is objectively superior to xbl in every way. In addition to that, xbox as a bran might be spun off by MS if this doesn't get its sales up.

My Kinect is on top of the wooden media center, separated from the Xbox One by an inch of wood, which is on top of the cable box separated by another inch of wood on another shelf in the console. Unless MSFT has invented x-ray IR, the only way light is getting from the Kinect to the cable box is the reflection off of objects in the room, which makes sense given Kinect is showers your room in thousands of IR beams (look up the night vision Kinect videos).

Motion gaming and mobile smart phone gaming are like a cancer to gaming culture. >I and a lot of other 360 fans just asked for a 360-2. ...you wouldn't happen to be an ardent fan of Call of Duty, would you? The thing is, innovation is important. Sometimes, like with the Kinect, it doesn't work out well. Sometimes, like with touchscreen gaming, it works out a bit too well. But either way, it's good to have, because it creates the difference between MW3 and Titanfall. MS is trying to do some pretty cool things IMO (seriously, they're trying to get the market to adopt both VR controls in gaming and seamless touch screen integration in computers), it's just that their marketing department sucks so bad that people are more focused on repetitive improvement (not necessarily a bad thing) than innovation. I honestly think that a voice/gesture/touch controlled box that sits in my living room and manages most of my electronic entertainment stuff is, like, 60% of the way (plus an Oculus) to a holodeck.

The issue is that the technical approach (single point depth camera) is fundamentally limited. You can make it more and more accurate and lower the latency more and more, and this brings in new possibilities like finger tracking, but it will always require you stand in front of a camera, in a roughly 6x6ft box, and that means you can only do things that happen in that box. There have been experiments paring it with a Rift and creating a holodeck type experience but a) that's more to do with the rift creating the experience (they have use PS move and other tech for the same effect) and b) it requires more than 1 kinnect to track spatially in that manner. My theory is not that the kinnect is dead, but that the technology it's based on is fundamentally not capable of more than a hands free version of the PS move, and one of the biggest draw backs it has is the lack of tactile feedback, which means you need something like a controller (like the PS move) to make the experience "solid" again. Case in point: steel battalion. Great concept that actually works within the limitations of the technology (you sit in one place so you stay inside the box) with 3 major flaws. 1) the kinnect was not accurate and reliable enough (this can be addressed, per above) 2) the game wasn't any fun (a more fun version could certainly be made) 3) without feedback you're just miming things, which isn't satisfying or fun unless you're a drama major and even then it tends to wear thin pretty quickly. There's nothing you can do about the kinnect to address #3, so no matter how good it gets it still won't be anything more than play acting without props... even as a little kid with an infinite imagination I still got bored just holding my hand like a gun, I wanted a toy gun... there's no toy gun with kinnect, it's just pointing your finger and yelling bang... and then hoping it registers both your hand position and the voice command... regarding oculus specifically there is no comparison regarding experience, or engagement. The rift instantly feels like the future when you put it on for the first time. The kinnect feels like a neat trick that might have some potential if x,y,z criteria are met. Source: was a rift kickstarter backer and have been working on it ever since. I honestly don't fault anyone for thinking "that sounds cool, but there's just a lot of hype" regarding the Rift. The promises being made by every reviewer are sky high. However from my personal experience it meets or exceeds the hopes. There are certainly plenty of technical issues (latency, resolution, etc.) but there's a reason it's won best of show damn near everywhere it's been since it first started getting press. Don't believe the hype, DO strap one on and see for yourself. regarding the Wii U, I think it's circling the drain. It's not dead yet because there's still interest on nintendo's part, and they still have the ability to push out some solid first party titles to breath some life into the console, but the chances it will be a major player are almost nil. 3rd parties don't want to touch it, gamers have moved on to shinier boxes, and they screwed the pooch with marketing so the "casual" market was missed completely. It's nintendo so miracles are possible, but if they don't pull something off quickly the steam roller of the PS4/Xbox One combo grabbing all the headlines will ensure they're too far behind to be of any relevance (of course barring a nintendo miracle). Bottom line: all this tech is cool. It all has potential. But some tech is a good idea that doesn't get capitalized on (Wii U screen controller for example, so much promise but really who is going to spend the money to develop something worth while when there's no market share?), some is amazing technically but really just doesn't work in a compelling manner in the real word (kinnect sensor tech really is flipping amazing, but amazing and fun/functional are very much not the same thing, and there just doesn't seem to be a connection), and some technology makes you feel like you just stepped into the future the first time you touch it (the rift being the obvious example, it's unlike anything you've experienced before unless you've literally used a $10k + simulator or VR rig, and if you have you'll appreciate that you can now get that in a tiny box for the essentially nothing.) The Wii controller, the PS Move and the Kinnect are competitor technologies, they all have strengths and weaknesses, but they do essentially the same thing, which is restricted motion tracking with little (or no) feedback and response. There's only so much fun in that bubble and the Wii wrung it out enough that the boost you get from the kinnect or PS Move technology doesn't add any more life to the party.

Here's the thing that bothers me. I mean, yes, you can make the argument they are making a more consumer friendly product that will reach a broader audience. But, even though the Xbox One itself is what caused me to go from Xbox 360 to PS4, it was doing it's own thing, and that could've been interesting. The Wii U does it's own thing. The Wii did as well. I don't care for either system, but they did their own thing, they brought new ideas, some of them worked. They're not old Nintendo but they're still important to gaming. A friend and I liken it to MS and Sony fighting over the gamer market, and Nintendo goes after the Nintendo market. But, now, we've got the PS4, and the Xbox One in PS4's clothing. And instead of them doing their own thing, now Microsoft is doing Sony's thing. And that flip flop. It pisses people off on BOTH sides of the coin. There were people saying that the DRM Xbone could've been amazing, you could've shared games with other people, it might've been neat. But, it got killed before we had a chance to see. And, Kinect. The idea being that if every Xbone was sold with it, then the developer could count on the gamer having one, and design for it. Yes, the Kinect is one of the things that lead me against the Xbone, but if it was a standard device then there was a chance some interesting ideas could have happened. Except, not anymore, as the Kinect is no longer a standard device, seven months after release. And what about the other side of the coin? How is Microsoft suppose to garner trust in this move? The Kinect free Xbone will launch nearly one year to the day after E3 where the Xbone was shown as a DRM packed, Kinect linked monster, and one year after this is singing a completely different tune. They say that they're giving me what I want, that I should trust them now. But how do I know this won't change into something else one more year from now that I don't want?

It's fun to find the different ways to "break" the story-- in a way the game is a whole series of puzzles. Attempting to obstruct the Narrator is entertaining. One review summed it up as "the game asks you to dance" and I'd say that feels close to the truth. The Narrator is a complicated character and a fun dance partner. The environment has a personality of it's own, too. Another way to look at it is as a game that is almost entirely about the Easter Eggs; or look at it like it is a choose your own (mis)adventure book. Or as any book, you can read the

This is in regards to console-to-console Benefit of a console is everything is consolidated and controlled including the server experience. My guess is they don't want people hosting their own private servers using their provider of choice as it is a liability for the console experience. eg. how people host their own tf2 servers. In addition it is slightly tacky in the first place. Although if this was possible would open the door wider to the possibility of cross-platform. With this in mind companies either have to work with each other or are willing host servers with a standard protocol that safely allows other consoles to use. Doubt companies want to be the barer of burden, and its quite strange to work with your direct competitors.

Isaac and his mother lived alone in a small house on a hill. Isaac kept to himself drawing pictures and playing with his toys as his mom watched Christian broadcasts on the television. Life was simple and they were both happy. That was until the day Isaac's mom heard a voice from above: "Your son has become corrupted by sin. He needs to be saved." "I will do my best to save him, my Lord," Isaac's mother replied, rushing into Isaac's room, removing all that was evil from his life. Again the voice called to her: "Isaac's soul is still corrupt. He needs to be cut off from all that is evil in this world and confess his sins." "I will follow your instructions, Lord. I have faith in thee," Isaac's mother replied as she locked Isaac in his room away from the evils of the world. One last time Isaac's mom heard the voice of God calling to her: "You've done as I've asked, but I still question your devotion to me. To prove your faith, I will ask one more thing of you." "Yes, Lord. Anything," Isaac's mother begged. "To prove your love and devotion, I require a sacrifice. Your son, Isaac, will be this sacrifice. Go into his room and end his life as an offering to me, to prove you love me above all else." "Yes, Lord," she replied, grabbing a butchers knife from the kitchen. Isaac, watching through a crack in his door, trembled in fear. Scrambling around his room to find a hiding place, he noticed a trapdoor to the basement hidden under his rug. Without hesitation, he flung open the hatch just as his mother burst through his door and threw himself down into the unknown depths below... So

It has a huge fanbase. Not only that, but the fans are extremely devout. Do a search on Etsy or Redbubble for "Dark Souls." There's TONS of fan-made merchandise. There's a sequel out (Dark Souls 2), and it's a lot easier and I generally like it a lot less. People still play the first one, and Dark Souls 2, and some people still play the game that came before Dark Souls (Demon's Souls). I only have two issues with Dark Souls. 1: The game is inherently broken. The developers (From Software) were on a tight budget and deadline because of their producer (Bandai Namco), so a lot of the stuff they put in the game is kind of unfair or broken. 2: I want more. The game is amazing, but it's pretty short compared to some of my other favorite games. The sequel, I thought, was gonna be the "more" that I wanted, but it just wasn't. It was a lot of nothing compared to the first. The thing that bugs me MOST about this is that From Soft had PLANNED to add a LOT more to the game. A lot of the characters and bosses were supposed to be HUGELY important compared to the minor roles they have now. For instance, there's one boss in the game - a dragon crossbreed - that is completely irrelevant to pretty much everything. There's some stuff in her area that you can only get there, but none of it is NECESSARY. She's a tiny part of the game, but she was supposed to be one of the most important characters. The only reason they didn't make her and the others as big parts of the game as they were supposed to be is because of the short deadline and funding.

Had it been the middle one on top or bottom then there'd be a 1 in 3 random chance of getting it right. And the first one is random. Thus it's random.

I mean it does, trying to go for two styles but giving the 'new and improved one' to the next gen consoles probably sounded like a great idea in rep, but that might be the reason why they made a broken game. I thought Unity was on all consoles, and I swear it was, But I guess the advertising department didn't want to go with 'Already got a 360? great! get the Rogue version, it's just like Black Flag', I mean it wouldn't make as much money but hell I love Black Flag on my PC and any AC game from 2 and 3 where the main story is the same game anyway, so I wouldn't mind buying the same game in that sense.

It's a mix of everything really. Open worlds like skyrim, story telling on par, or even better than dragon age, combat similar to bloodborne, and the feel of red dead redemption. It's definitely worth the money, but don't go into it expecting the same challenge as bloodborne. Its not nearly as challenging as bloodborne, but not too easy like skyrim.

Destiny is a good game, people just over hyped it and expected the second coming of Christ. It has one of the tightest control schemes out of any FPS I have played. Enemy factions are varied, use completely different tactics than one another, and are genuinely fun to fight. The difficulty scales well as you progress and the PVP arena gamemode is a blast. The first campaign can be easily soloed in 6-10 hours, so par for the course as far as shooters go, its story is about as deep as most shooters but keeps teasing backstory and past events. It gets you to about level 20 with little to no grinding which is as far as experience gets you anyways. Any additional level past that requires "light" that is given by your equipment. This makes it easy to delevel yourself to play with others not as far as you which is easily one of the best mechanics. Some Random number generator mechanics apply to equipment drops but it is far more fair than it was at launch. The expansions are solid and in my mind, easily worth the price of admission. Even without the expansions you get access to the new multiplayer maps and equipment. As I mentioned before the story is par for the course but seems dry due to a lot of mentioning of past events and backstory. A lot of it is in the Grimoire cards you get by progressing through campaign, killing X number of an enemy or faction, finding certain things in the world, ect. One of the biggest shortcomings is that they didn't incorporate a way to access the cards through the actual game, requiring you to go to Bungie's site or use the companion app to read them. They are very interesting and do increase the depth of the game. Bungie has been fairly active throughout the lifespan of the game and is nearly constantly tweaking weapon balance in PVP for the better.

I'm going to argue that the gaming industry is NOT special. If you think games have a brief shelf-life, take another look at your two other examples: Movies and music. Music is exceptionally ephemeral. A song is a hit one day and a punchline the next. Movies have a theatrical exhibition life averaging 4-6 weeks from opening day to sub-run availability. "Avatar" is an exception. "The Hurt Locker" was not. Since I'm more familiar with movies, I'll re-examine film revenues: Movies: * Tickets at a first-run movie theater * Tickets at a sub-run movie theater * Toys, games and merchandise based on the film * Initial DVD/Blu-ray release * Pay-per-view * Premium TV channel (HBO, Showtime, etc.) * Network or cable TV channel (may be multiples) * Special edition/Director's cut DVD (may be multiples) * DVD Bundle * Theatrical re-release of special/anniversary edition (think Star Wars, E.T., etc.) * Theatrical re-release of enhanced edition as technology evolves (think Beauty and the Beast or Toy Story in 3D) If a DVD or Blu-ray disc (or VHS tape) is sold used, the film company isn't making money on that transaction, but they sold it in the first place. If you watch their film on network TV, they aren't making any more money on the transaction than if you didn't watch, but they sold it in the first place. If you watch a DVD at a friend's house, they aren't making any money on that showing, but they sold it in the first place. And, I guess, that's the bottom line. They sold it in the first place. After that, it's no longer theirs. They accepted money in exchange for control. BTW: If a game makes it to the bargain bin, then the publisher HAS been paid for it.

Make sure to familiarize yourself with how the levelling system works. It's much different than pretty much any other RPG game before it in relation to difficulty/levelling .

Actually, I'd say DoktorSleepless has a point. Take a closer look at the screenshots: (1) ]( The texture on the closer 2 domes is very pixelated. [(3)]( The textures in the foreground are actually quite plain and look like someone has used too much sharpen filter. Also, you can see there's no bump mapping, which is how most models in Crysis get their feeling of up-close detail. Don't get met wrong, I think this demo is amazing for just one person - most video games have enormous art teams, sometimes over 100 people - but as DoktorSleepless said, it would look pretty bad if you were actually running around, painting it with blood.

Long-time game developer here. For in-engine cut scenes, I've seen them made unskippable because they're essentially just giant scripts that change all kinds of stuff in the game world and leave everything in a new state when they're done. It's not easy to just stop updating state in the middle of a script, then go to the end as if everything in the script had happened. Here's just one example: let's say you decide to skip in the middle of a giant fiery explosion of particles. Normally those particles are gone by the end of the cut scene, but now you have to make sure they get properly deleted so that they aren't still rendering once you've skipped to the end. That's just one of the hundreds of things that may not have been accounted for during development of the game because you usually don't skip in time like that during gameplay. Add in the fact that unskippable cut scenes, while annoying, are lower priority than stability, gameplay, and manufacturer approval, and that is how you get stuck with them. Well, that's one possible reason anyway. EDIT 1: I picked a simple, contrived example that I thought might illuminate the problem for non-programmers. Unfortunately a fellow game developer decided I was an idiot and told me how to fix my "problem", missing the entire point and putting me in a foul mood. For the record, I have never shipped a game that didn't let you skip a cutscene because I couldn't figure out how to get rid of some stray particles. My point is simply that script-driven systems change the game state, so you have to make sure that when you skip forward in time by a large delta (something which doesn't normally happen during gameplay) from any single point within the cutscene everything that needs to happen happens. When you're dealing with a complex system that's not always as easy as it sounds. Rendering, physics, sound, animation, world simulation, and other scripts (many times written by non-programmers) need to be able to handle it. Amazingly they sometimes don't. As for "just loading a saved state", that can be a good way to handle the problem, except that it needs to be selective since you can't load the player character's state, or the state of anything the player "touched" while traversing the level. This "selective state loading" is special case code just for the purpose of cut-scene skipping, and brings its own can of worms with it. Running in "fast forward" without rendering? In a previous era when most of your time was spent rendering this worked well. But now you're probably rendering in parallel with your game processing, which means skipping it could lead to a very awkward pause while the simulation calculates. I think the situation is as inexcusable as the rest of you, and on projects I'm working on I try to make sure this doesn't happen, or isn't frustrating if it does (providing a save point or even autosaving at the end of a long cut scene for example). The question was, though, why does it happen - and I guarantee you this is one reason why.

People like you remind me why I got into game development, not for the pretentious arrogant self reightous gamers. Yes your majesty, your suggestion is so simple and will definitely work! You are so superior to me! Years of experience I have is nothing compared to your second hand idea on how something should work. Ah well, shoudln't get so mad at you, you and your stupid suggestions which make you feel so brilliant while people such as myself or Silversmith realize is so stupid is the reason Dilbert exists, which is a great comic.

You were angry when you started writing this post. You're angry whenever you read "pretentious arrogant self reightous gamers". Now assume for a second that not all of are such folks. Now imagine us getting really angry having to wait through a 30 sec cutscene 500 times to get a really tough boss. Now do you see why we sound like pretentious arrogant self-righteous gamers? (who actually, you know, paid for the product you made; which was made for US ).

Since you feel comfortable shouting "amateur," I'll say that posting (hopefully not proprietary/commercial) code online and asserting "see, just do it like this" is the mark of an experienced, if early-stage developer. Over generalization/assumptions of requirements & constraints, and a belief that others who have issues are noobs (we have NO idea what engine/et al he's using or inherited!) is a common trait of hotshot-but-young developers...hopefully one which gets muted with more years in (and hence more time seeing different projects).

Since when has the term 'developers' not been a catch-all term for 'the collection of designer(s), artists, programmers, et cetera, collaboratively making the interactive entertainments in question'? It seems like you're making a distinction between the 'developers' (which in your mind, I suppose, means 'programmers' specifically) and the 'designers,' or possibly 'executives.' Most normal people make no such distinction. Hell, most of the time the entire game company is referred to as the 'developer.'

I played AOE III for about an hour before the 3d swoopy camera and other special effects annoyed me enough that I went back to AOE II, which is still the best, I think. I have the same issue with Civ III vs IV.... IV sits ignored while I still play III. Too much graphical fluff in the newer one. When they make fancy 3D games like this, they should really have a zoom-out to old-fashioned isometric view, I think. The art assets would be minimal extra work, and it's just so much easier to see/manage hundreds of pieces when they are easy to identify, even at small sizes. It reminds me a lot of the third-person shooter trend where half the screen is blocked by your huge, zoomed in, very detailed character and you have almost zero peripheral vision. It's as if they are designing games to make good YouTube videos, rather than be good to play.

open betas, devs- they save patches. But other than that, I'd rather play a buggy game a month sooner, have literally hundreds of millions of gamer-hours put onto it in a matter of weeks, then have a ton more bugs fixed than if it were released later. Bugs are part of games, and as you get more complex games, they come with more bugs.

this only works if steam is in offline mode (otherwise it will always do a version check when the game is launched; that option only affects background updating) but offline mode only works with games that are in a consistent state. a newly-bought game doesn't qualify, you must be online the first time it's launched (that's when it'll download the serial key file for quake3, for example). This goes double for steam games sold in shops; there's a pretty decent chance the data files on the DVD are encrypted and require a decryption key from steam first (as an anti-pre-zero-day-piracy measure)

Man, I really wish I recorded the screen while I was trying to get my first "gamesforwindows" game, Arkham Asylum, up and running. It was even worse than the situation the op is writing in about. I have blocked out most of the events that transpired, but let me see what I can recall. I downloaded the game off of steam, installed it, and ran the game. I remember getting it authenticated was a bit of a hassle, but went by pretty quick. As soon as it gets to the start menu, the live notification bar comes down, telling me I have to sign in to use multiplayer, save achievements and a few other things. I already have a windows live account so I type in my info. It then tells me there is a live update (this is for the overlay, not the game) I MUST install it in order to continue. To install, the game must be closed. I close the game and it installs. Starting the game back up, I'm prompted to sign into windows live again. This time I set it to remember my email and password. As soon as I sign in, there is another required update for me. Same rules apply. Game is shut down. After getting the game back up, I see that every time it updates, the option to remember my email and password are forgotten. When I sign in this time, I get to the next screen. At this point, it informs me that I need to associate an xbox live account to my windows live account. It provides a hyperlink you can click that will shut down the game and bring you to a website to do this. If you click the link, the game shuts down and it brings you to a page with a 404 error. After picking myself off the floor, I just went to xbox.com and tried figuring it out from there. At the xbox website, I signed in to my windows live account, and it then automatically generated a really stupid gamertag for me. Annoyed, I searched around for ten minutes trying to figure out how to change it. I find out that you can only change your gamertag once for free. It costs you MONEY just to change it again after that. This wouldn't be so bad if they didn't ALLOW ME TO CHOOSE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Now I have to use my one chance to freely alter the tag to set it how it should have been in the first place. Oh well, now I can play the game, right? So, time to start up the game again. Get prompted to sign into windows live again, this time it sees I have a xbox live account and a gamertag. Another update. This one requires a computer restart ... All I want is to play the damn game! I think after this, I was able to actually play, but I'm also fairly certain I have left out some things from this adventure. I think there was an extra update/shutdown in there I've overlooked. I regret that I didn't capture the experience with video for all to enjoy.

Weebus, while I agree that adaptations of the kind you mention in the post have been almost invariably bad, I don't agree with your explanation. I don't think the failure of video-game movies is due to differences in the media, but more likely due to differences in the philosophies of the production teams. When games get adapted to film, 9 times out of 10, the production company/screenwritet is looking for an easy, cgi-driven hit using a commercially-proven vehicle. They don't care about nuance, about character depth, or immersion. In essence, they want a product that they can produce without substantially developing it. Game developers, in the best of circumstances, love their creations and engage with the experience in a way that, bankroll willing, leads to a thoughtful and deep gameplay experience.

Personally, I have been of the opinion that the entertainment industry should not be making any more films based on videogames, especially since the disaster of "Street Fighter" and the continuation of the "Resident Evil" series, the continuation of "Silent Hill" and other cinematic pieces of junk that completely disregard any real attempt at story and rely more on gimicky fluff and low-investment/high-retail idealism. Money-making destroys these potentially good adaptations. However, after seeing the work done by Noam Murro, the guy who directed two of the live-action/CGI trailers for Halo: Reach , I'm beginning to have hope for the idea of videogame-to-film adaptations. [Deliver Hope]( [Birth of a Spartan]( The thing is, an adaptation has to be done with the intent of making a film good , not with the intent of making money. In order for it to be successful, the entire creative team has to be invested in the idea, know about the game, know about the story of the game, and know how to tell the story exceptionally well. The characters are all right there, developed and ready for action. It just takes a steady hand at the helm to point it in the right direction. I, for one, am all for the creation of a Halo franchise series, based almost solely on the fact that Dreamworks is vying for the rights to the novels surrounding the Halo universe, not just the games themselves. This opens up so much more story, development, character realization, and production quality. Whether it's good or bad, it is going to pull in a lot of money. I'm hoping that it's good. And on the topic of whether it's good to do it live-action or animated, it depends on the game. If Alan Wake or Uncharted or FEAR were to be made into films, live action mixed with CGI would be a viable and good option (and, they are being optioned and made as of right now). However, with films such as The Legend of Zelda , Mass Effect or God of War were to be made into films, a high-grade motion-capture-CGI approach (along the lines of Avatar ) would be the best way to capture the full scale and feel of the games and their story. The way I see it, there is so much potential in videogames and their stories and their characters that it would be a folly not to try and adapt them into films. The film industry is getting better at making good films more consistently, but they're also really good at producing cinematic trash as well. If the right teams with the right passion and drive, and the willingness and wisdom to take the games seriously were to start adapting the vast vault of good videogames into quality films, I think there would be a lot more viable films out there that people would watch. Also, it's sort of a dream project of mine to work on adapting some of the games that I've enjoyed into pieces. I would love to see DeathSpank turned into a witty and adult-aimed Adult Swim cartoon series along the lines of Venture Bros. , or Zelda and Metroid heavily adapted, or even Red Dead Redemption , Dragon Age and Deus Ex Human made into films. Even if you just look at the trailers that are being produced, the cinematic potential is staring right back at you.

Videogames tend to be much better at telling a story than their live-action counterparts. There doesn't need to be live-action movies of videogames because there doesn't need to be movies of videogames. Sure movies-based-on-games may act as a great ambassador to those unfamiliar with the videogame industry (the same can be said for books: how many people saw The Lord the Rings trilogy, versus how many people actually read the books?), but they usually aren't. Most of the videogame-based movies I can think of are total crap, and the one exception that comes to mind right now is Silent Hill (though that could have been much, much better). They don't tell stories any better than their videogame originals, and quite frankly I don't see much use for them save for extra revenue.

I've played all the Battlefields since 1942, and every COD since 2, so I've had a pretty good amount of experience with each. While I enjoy the BF series much more (except Heroes... yuck), I don't like when people say one is better. They aren't the same type of game. The last 3 COD's have been twitch-fest reflex shooters. Weapons like the ACR in MW2 ( a recoilless 3 shot kill? Sick... I guess...) are a perfect example of what COD players want. I won't mention the pre-patch M60 from BC2 because they did nerf it somewhat, but BF is for people who enjoy strategically advancing and defending, not sprinting around with a knife that somehow has a 40 ft range. You have to admit that it's fairly difficult to just pick up a BF title and intuitively understand what's going on, and I think that's what scares a lot of people away. COD is immediately approachable and has Jeep endorsements. If you're a casual player, the choice is clear. Please feel free to argue, I've always found this discussion to be pretty interesting.

You guys seem to be playing a fairly different game than I am. Every time I die, I have to walk 10 miles back to the battlefield (because the vehicles are always destroyed or occupied) just to be sniped by a random guy hiding behind an impossible to see wall. It's fun as hell, as long as you can respawn right back to battle. I hate MW2. But Black Ops has improved it in every way, and every second I spend on it at the very least FEELS meaningful, as in I'm not missing a second of the action, meanwhile in BC2 death = boredom and probably more death.

EGH! I loathe the introduction of hardcore into many games for the simple fact that it rewards camping. In a game like BC2 where it can be so absurdly hard to spot a sniper to begin with hardcore mode makes it simply infuriating. Joining a rush hardcore typically consists of a team comprised of 12 snipers that think they are helping by just killing people on offense. Every time someone recommends hardcore mode to me the first thing out of their mouths is "Sniping is awesome!" - in BC2 if you think killing people is the point of the recon class you should probably try working as a member of your squad more. Advancing as a rear guard to disable weapon emplacements, make enemy snipers retreat and SPOT SPOT SPOT makes the class far more enjoyable than cowering in a bush.

as someone who has been playing the mod since around the 3.0 release I can say that it has changed a lot. first of all the engine is a highly modified version of unreal engine two (UE2.5), which makes for things like bloom and hdr or whatever. The game looks rough by today's standards, but it offers a very unique gameplay. they included smoke grenades in one update changing the way games were played. tanks are nearly perfect if thats your thing. they replaced most of the weapon models from the mod days...some of them are still around...they polished the maps up and have release countless free updates. i don't even want to count how many maps come stock in RO. sadly, most people play danzig :( BUT they helped put out a mod for their game called Darkest Hour which gives us the western front of the war, a lot of people play the mod. i could go on...but i wont...

They probably wouldn't not. Standards like Bluray are licensed by [a consortium]( since they're covered by patents owned by many different companies. Generally, these kinds of consortium agree (when getting together) to grant licenses on RAND ("reasonable and non-discriminatory") terms - that is, they'll decide on more-or-less a fixed license fee and grant a license to absolutely anyone who pays it. The same is true of DVD and MP3.

I did the same thing. I thought to myself "surely they wouldn't make it THIS tedious?", but couldn't find another way. I started stacking and did that for an hour or so, just to fail every single attempt. So I stopped playing the game for a week or so, and came back when I was actually in the mood to do some advanced stacking (trying to kill some time). That's when I found the valve.

I have taken a few risks buying rpg's for the xbox and nothing has really paid off, buying games such as infinite undiscovery, too human, blue dragon all of which haven't satisfied my rpg craving, I am like yourself and have played ME, Fallouts etc. Borderlands is quite enjoyable fps rpg hybrid. There are a few games coming out over the next few months that are worth waiting for such as Hunted Demons Forge and Deus Ex. IMO you should save your money and wait for these otherwise something cheap like Star oceon might keep you occupied until then, Eternal sonata is surprisingly fun when playing with a few friends up to 3 people i think, all controlling different characters during battle. Tales of vesperia also has a multiplayer element to it, it's quite fun but i didn't spend much time playing it.

Here is the thought process I imagine the author went through: "Wow, FFXIII's gameplay sucks. Why would anyone play this? Probably just for the story. So they're willing to slog through this in return for some future reward?" <Inserts convoluted argument about JRPG's existing in the future> The entire basis of her argument depends on her assumption that people who like JRPGs suffer through the real-time play in order to be rewarded with the cinematics/story development. It fails entirely if you accept the premise that some/most fans of JRPGs actually like the gameplay of their favorite JRPGs. The story is extra icing on an already delicious cake, not a bribe to force you to endure through the actual game. It's as if someone wondered why Dead Space was so popular when it seemed intentionally designed to make the gameplay as terrible an experience as possible for the player. Obviously the answer must be that players endure the gameplay in order to enjoy the datapads and cutscenes which expand and advance the narrative! Or, maybe the players like the gameplay (but an article about JRPG players who like the gameplay even though many western players don't is probably too pedestrian for the author). If we really want to look at games that place a large emphasis on the future state, as opposed to the present state, we could look at a number of "Western" games. For story-driven games, Mass Effect 2 is a good example. Most story-driven games have some sort of endgame in mind, but Mass Effect 2 stands out putting the endgame in center stage: planning for the endgame is the entire premise of the plot. In terms of concept, we can look to Minecraft. The act of mining stone isn't inherently fun, but it is made enjoyable/bearable through the anticipation of future events. You mine because you want to survive the night, because you want to build a castle, you want to explore the cave.

I will flat out say this: It is SOLELY because of Games for Windows Live that I have stopped purchasing their PC games. I even bought Dead Rising 2 on Steam legitimately, discovered it was GfWL, then got a refund and pirated it (told user support it was a system incompatibility or some other bullshit that convinced them to refund me). After pirating it, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I couldn't play any of the online stuff, but I did not mind at all.

GFWL games are on my "fuck it, i just pirate it" list, because GFWL is just terrible. I tried it a couple of times, but it's just total garbage in every possible way. It seems to need a update every single time you start a game that needs it, but that's not enough: It doesn't just update, it actually installs more than one version on your pc. Updates for what? It just seems to get slower and more buggy with every single update. But wait, there's more crap! It actually activates some kind of windows service or windows-autostart. There's nothing i hate more than something installing a service/autostart without giving me the option to turn it off beforehand.

I pretty much agree with what you're saying in this post, to be fair. I haven't bought a CoD since MW since I disliked what they did with features and support for the series since then. Don't get me wrong, sleezy, cheap shit I find annoying. I don't have a problem with day1 DLC as its a purchase incentive and I find that a decent, reasonable business practice. What's more annoying is the week 2 DLC that is more of a "well you bought the game and if you still like it you're still playing it so you'll probably shell out a few more bucks." With few exceptions, there haven' been many "expansions" for shooters in the last few years, just new maps and balance patches; that the current business model like it or hate it. Just as there weren't patches for console games before consoles with HDDs, there wasn't additional content PERIOD for consoles. Its a bit sad that this practice has come full circle to PCs, but its just the state of the game these days. Yes, in this perfect world that you refer to it'd be nice to cut a deal with gamestop for devs to recoup profit, but I see ZERO incentive for gamestop/etc to do such as a thing. DLC that you get from the original purchase seems perfectly fine to me, I just don't get what's wrong with it. (and all slippery slope arguments can go to hell) Lastly, its incredibly unfair to compare CS1.6 engine to Frostbite 2 engine. Yes for their time they were both as good as it gets, but that hardly makes developing for them equitable in difficulty. I miss modding tools, I played Desert Combat for forever, but its not unreasonable to be sad that the devs didn't produce tools. The reason that U3 and Cry2 have such wonderful mod tools is that their engine is licensed to other Devs. Frostbite is currently a proprietary, inhouse engine. There is ZERO reason for them to have an approachable, standalone little "mod tool"/dev tool package aside from people who want to make mods. Again, don't misread that as belittling the mod community, I jsut don't see how it makes sense for DICE to essentially release their engine to the public so that a few mods could be painstakingly constructed that may/may not do this magical "keep up interest". I didn't play any mods but a tiny but of PR in BF2 as I didn't really need anything beyond the game. If BF3 is everything we're anticipating, than I'm 110% content to buy the game, play BF3, and be happy with BF3 in its release/patch state without 'mods' and such. I mean really, aside from DC and PR in the last two primary BF games, what mods have had any more than a few hundred online at a time? I just don't see a cost/benefit analysis coming out ahead in any way from a business standpoint. Mods increase lifetime? So does advertising, PR, DLC, largescale DLC expansions, sequels/inhouse mods (a la 2142, vietnam). I simply think their money could be better put to use for their own profitable ends.

From what I heard on some video game podcasts, it's really Dead Rising + Far Cry. The guy they played as in the demo kept spewing one-liners, like "damn, now she really dead!" It kind of appealed to the opposite target audience as the trailer did. I will commend it for not giving us a crapload of ammo and guns. However, I'm doubtful they will implement it well, because people will complain it's too hard. I really wish there were a fatigue system though. The average person can not fight hand to hand against a horde of zombies. Chopping through hundreds of the undead should really tire you out! Then there is the need to gather actual food/gas for your missions. I think if they introduce these elements, it'd make the games truly fun and challenging.

As fair as your point is it's not that difficult. Most gamers tend to stick with one brand of cards, in my case Nvidia (purely a driver related choice). This could be done for ATI card, however I don't know their line up at all, except a 4 series is less than a 5 series, with a 5970 being one of the fastest dual GPU cards available. So in this case I can think back over the product lines I've used in the past and think, well I had a 6 Series (6600gt) 6 years ago, then I got a 7 Series (7800gs), then an 8 series (8800gtx), then the 9 series appeared but I didn't upgrade as it wasn't needed, I could play all my games. Then the GTX2 series came out, still not enough for me. GTX4 Now these are worth an upgrade. GTX5** Nope too pricey. So really we've just covered the majority of the Nvidia line knowing which series is faster than the others without doing any extra research, all I needed to know was 6 numbers. GTX 5 > GTX 4 > GTX 2** > 9 Series > 8 Series > 7 Series > 6 Series. Now a GTX 220 is a low end 200 series, don't expect it to blast through games. A GTX 280 is toward the higher end, with a GTX 290 being the highest part of the 200 series. 8800 - Highest card in series - Great for running current games (at release) on maximum settings at most resolutions. 8600 - Mid range card of series - Good at running most games at medium/high at some resolutions. 8200 - Great for watching videos and playing some last gen games (again vs time of release of the series, e.g. 2007). Lingo, GTX tends to be the highest model in the series, e.g. 8800GTX, however now it's in front of the number this isn't the case. GS means golden sample, from some manufacturers this means the units were pieced together from faulty GTX's (again 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 series). OC simply means overclocked. SLI compatible means you can combine the card with another of the same type to increase performance, or to run Physx. If you go back any further than that you can't expect to game on newer games. When you get into enthusiast setups, for example 2*GTX 480 in SLI and wonder if it will run better than a GTX580 (series up) you really need to check out a review site. Tomshardware is great for graphics comparisons. I will add though if you are willing to spend the money on a setup like this you should really know your gear. Edit:

The problem is people have different definitions of 'run'. It will execute properly on pretty much any computer, just unplayably low fps. But what do you consider playable? 30? 60? 100? 120? What level of turning down the graphics are you willing to accept to get to that fps number? Are you okay with changing resolution?

Welcome to the inherent problem with PC gaming. As can be seen by the arguments already taking place on this thread you have the war between the technical savvy and those attempting to make them see the side of people who aren't. Microsoft Windows already tried to bring in a comparable feature to help people decide if they can run a game. It's that "Windows Experience Index" which most people ignore. The value of that was meant to be comparable to certified "Games for Windows" software which were also meant to have a value on them that can be compared against. "Oh my computer is a 2.5 but this recommends a 4" Do you see how well that got off the ground? It didn't. The check of whether a game can be easily implemented and automated. Software could check based on DXDiag results to the minimum and recommended specification as a base to fall back on. Advanced upon this there could be a part of Steam, or another executable, which runs a test on the graphics card to see what it is capable of (because even if it did a comparison check on the type of graphics card to some database, the chipset could vary from manufacturer at least on what clock rate it is). This check could then go against metadata stored on the game (requirement of shaders 3.0 for example) to see if it could at least be operable before purchase. However there are some areas which may hinder the development of this: Depending on the solution the data may need to be 'saved' or 'checked somewhere, for example the checking of what each graphics card is capable of may need a comparison database. That requires a server, database software, license for said software (unless open source solution) etc. Depending on the solution software would have to be created, tested, checked for usability, tried against the users to see if they understand it, this takes time. The 'steam store' may have to be overhauled to handle either of the above solutions, which again takes time and resources and also you're increasing the amount of data stored or at least transferred. This increases cost of bandwidth and data and strain on the servers. There may have to be a way of 'standardising' how games handle this 'feature' as a way of automatically adjusting to the system specification, how would this be handled in the rating? how can this be conveyed to the user? Can it be controlled? As it's a sale of an item, it may have to hold up against laws about the description of an item being sold. If someone's told, incorrectly or not accurately that the software can run on their system then Valve's opening themselves up for potential problems. Perhaps it could be said that the responsibility of whether or not a game runs on the users machine is down to the software developer and its ability to adjust to their system. This was already simplified with games such as Oblivion being able to auto-adjust when it was first ran and many other games do so similarly. Some also say that it's the responsibility of the user and that they should be competent enough to know what their 'system specification' is, but I would ask why should it be made harder and more foreign than it already is and why not make it easier if it is plausible to do so? I've seen articles sprout up that the PC is a 'dying system' for games, this isn't assisting in its availability and I don't understand or see justification for not assisting users when it is possible to.

Hah. Vaporware . I get it. Steam does deliver, however. If it didn't, then no one would still be using it, and would actually be suing it. Steam is also owned by Valve, a much bigger corporation who brings us other pieces of working software and games, such as the Source engine, Portal and Portal 2, the Half-Life series, Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, and more. While some fans may be whining about how long Episode 3 is taking (maybe they're trying to create a dramatic TRON-style effect, guys), Valve delivers, they would not still exist in the industry if they did not, and because we know Valve delivers, we can trust Steam to deliver. If at some point Valve or Steam ceases to deliver, PC gamers will move to a new platform for buying games.

I do think there's a difference between personal favourites and games people consider to be excellent, but when discussing the 'best ever' it's too easy to venture too far in to subjectivity for it to be of any real use as a discussion point or a guideline in general. This is why I consider top lists to be... kind of silly - you're far better off simply listing the (x) amount of games you consider to be paragons and letting the discussion trickle out from there instead of setting them in an order based on biased reasoning. Narrowing the scope with a strict limitation on what can be included also helps as it introduces a clear guideline for selection and ranking. Separating personal favourites from the 'best of all time' is hard though and you run the risk of getting in to the trap of thinking about what you 'expect' to be the best of all time. Judgements would be tempered as you constantly second guess whether you like something because it tickles your fancy or because it genuinely outshines other titles, potentially leading to choices that don't mirror your personal experience with the game.

I work in a lab that uses homology modelling to design drugs. We've already designed several compounds that have shown to inhibit their target proteins in the wet lab, not just on the computer. Contributing to Folding@Home will lead to better modelling of structures which have not been solved using x-ray crystallography or NMR, such as membrane proteins. Several pharmaceutical companies have been using these methods to design successful drugs for years.

Hmm...you just need some tips. Make sure to keep upgrading your guns - GO OUT OF YOUR WAY to kill enemies. It's totally worth it. Also, open up every chest you get and pawn the crap you can't use. Play Siren at first - best noob class ever. It's saved me more times than I can count. Also, make it your aim to kill every enemy you see. You get much more experience this way. Do ALL the side-quests. Nine-toes (and most of the bosses in this game) are much easier than a swarm of less powerful enemies because you can only really kill one at a time.

To me you might get 'crushed' in a sense but as the walls with the portals on them opened back you would also be restored. In the animation if the walls only 1/2 crushed the person (while still being portaled multiple time) and then pulled the walls back, he'd unportal and be back to normal. I think it would be the same when fully 'crushed'. The only difference is after going through many many more portals when fully 'crushed' is that the parts of the person/object are much smaller, possibly microscopic or at the atomic level. There could be one factor which could make or break the person/object being actually crushed and dead versus 'crushed' and restored once the walls pull away. It is the how much surface area the 'crushed' person takes up and how small their parts get when pressed between the portals. Are their parts down to the atomic level? Say it is at the atomic level. At this level, even if the portals and the walls were perfectly flat, then pressed together, a single atomic particle could still fit between the portals. So could a whole bunch of atomic particles lined up next to each other in a space between the two portals only one atomic particle wide. This would be the smallest size two portals pressed together could break a person up into. If all the atomic particles making up a person get flattened like a pancake on a 2D plain, the surface area of that plain must be smaller than that of the surface area of the portal(s). If their surface area is smaller than the portal(s), they'll fit. If they take up more surface area than the portal surface area and the portal breaks up a person into atoms, then the person would be crushed. Your atomic particles would get crushed against each other either melding them together or colliding them like a particle collider thus killing you. Test it with a baseball at an extremely small detail on how the ball gets 'crushed' between the portals. I bet when the walls are pulled apart the baseball is fine. Same with a watermelon. Maybe a baby. Sumo wrestler, maybe not. Maybe we should experiment on this. Maybe set up some test courses.

Once the volume between the ovals is less than the volume of your body, you'd be pushed out from between the two walls. It would probably crush your body into soup before it did that considering that, up against yourself, there is a lot of "empty" space taken up by air. It would probably push you out before all of the space was used up. Path of least resistance is the key.

You sure about that? The portals would have to take energy to create and maintain, they give off light and have a hum, and therefore don't have an indefinite duration, they must eventually end. I don't for the life of my have any physics equations that work here, but to figure it out, the potential energy for the water would be equal to the "distance" the portals allow for. So lets give it arbitrary numbers: Lets say there's 100 feet between portals and pretend for simplicity's sake (I know this is incorrect) that the water is moving at 10 ft/s at maximum velocity. We'll then arbitrarily give the portals a 60 second life span. That means it takes the water 10 seconds between portals (assuming it's already at full speed when it begins), and thus made it through six times before the portals dissipate. The "distance" created by those portals for an object at maximum velocity is 600 ft.

If the portal is completely flat, and the surface that the portal is on is completely 100% flat, then I have no idea. But I imagine that if there was a human between the portals that was squishing herself, there would be a remnant left what would not allow the portals to come together completely.

Wrong. As shown in the first Portal, when the surface on which a portal lays goes forward and backward, or changes angle, the portal will close. Though in Portal 2, it is shown that Portals can move up and down (AKA X or Y axis). Thus, right when the two beams will start moving, the portals will close. The stick man will still die from being crushed. The portals will have no effect.

True, however our relative momentum has equalized. Portal collapse when their relative distance between each other changes while the portals are active. If you move one of the portals, you're technically destroying and recreating one of them and the remaining portal now fixes to the new portal. However, if the positions of the portals change while still active, one or both of them will collapse.

Regarding streaming on Netflix, you should be fine. As for games, maybe not so much. Downloadable Rock Band songs average at 30mb so that really depends on how much money you decide to dump into that, if at all. Other games' DLC vary usually between half a gig to a one gb. If you want a 360 slim, I think they only offer those in 4 and 250gb variants. The older model has HDDs in 20gb, 60gb, and 120gb. This article is from September.

I think it's purely because it's free money. Think about it, when you pre-order a game, what do you really get besides the guarantee that at some point you will be able to buy your game. At face value it sounds ridiculous (to me at least), only done when the game is obviously going to sell out everywhere. Now they've gotten smart and realized that they can throw some tiny bonus in for the people that pre-order, to make people actually want to pre-order any given game. Nothing really changes because more often than not the pre-order bonus is insignificant. Obviously there have been some vital pre-order bonuses, but it seems like (at least from what I've seen) it's mainly something small. When it comes down to it, the companies realize that people will pay an exorbitant amount to buy every little thing for a game, so why not try to make as much money as possible?

Did you really think this was worth our time? It's completely unoriginal, to the point where people are tired of the phrase in text form, let alone image-based. Also, you left no context. What about the company makes you want to give them money?

You should really read this. >For those who don't understand what these two posts are saying, let me explain. EA wants to put BF3 on Steam. They are allowing ALL digital download services to sell BF3. So why, currently, is BF3 not offered on Steam? It is because Valve has restrictive agreement requirements that require game developers to do patches, updates, and provide all DLC through Steam. Why is this a problem? It is a problem because BF3 offers patches, updates, and DLC through the game directly. It does not need a 3rd-party service to provide these updates. BF3 already has its own servers and services to provide you all of this directly through the game. In other words, this is Steam rejecting BF3. Not the other way around. I know many of you don't like EA and love Steam. I know you want this to be EA's fault. Not Steams. I love Steam too, but the truth of this matter is that Steam is at fault for this. Steam wants a revenue share for any DLC that BF3 may put out later, but unless Steam provides that DLC, they can't make money off of it. Since BF3 has the infrastructure to sell DLC directly through the game, they don't need Steam for that service. Let me explain further why this situation is ridiculous. The developers of BF3 have already created the system that can directly provide you with DLC through the game with no hassle. Then you have Steam, who wants to force all future game transactions through them. They want this so they can keep a percentage of it. Why is this ridiculous? It's ridiculous because BF3 does not need them for this. Steam is not providing any additional service or benefit to BF3 regarding DLC. It is simply Valve/Steam trying to get profits from something they have done no work to create or provide. Please understand, Steam can offer BF3. They simply can't force BF3 DLC to be sold through them. However, you, as a BF3 customer, could still get any DLC through the game...even if you got it through Steam.

Current... here's why. I can play all of the new games with "advanced" graphics and gameplay, and I can play my true favorite generation(s) games (SNES) on my phone. While new games are great, I find that FF3(6) is taking up most of my time right now. But when I feel like it, I'll play a few matches of Bad Company 2 or Modern Warfare 2 on the PC (I'm an equal opportunity employer). And Steam is great, I have a huge collection of games to play whenever I have a free moment, which isn't often these days. But I can also go back and play the cherished games of my childhood using Dosbox and other emulators.

Are you me? My driving force was Natural Selection and mother fucking Jedi Knight: Outcast is what made me interested in Computers. Also Half-life 2 since my computer at the time couldn't run it :( but that's what got me into hardware and networking got cisco certs and compTIA certs and now I'm a programmer to and in my free time building a video game engine and game o.o

I still don't see what the big hype is over all of this. She went on a blind date with someone who's online profile didn't match his actual personality. She was mad that he basically wasted her time, because had she known information like this, she wouldn't have even considered him. It's like not including any major interest of your in your online dating profile. Whether it is in Sports, Movies, TV, Gaming, Role Playing, etc. If I have no interest in sports, and I ended up on a date with a girl who spent much of her free time watching and playing sports, I would be incredibly bored and not be interested. Had the fact that she liked Sports been in the article, I wouldn't have bothered going on a date with her. Obviously you can't include everything about yourself in an online profile, but you would think if you are a world champion in a card game and you still actively play it, you would include that so that the people would know. Not putting something important to you makes it seem like you are withholding information in order to score a date. Wouldn't he rather find someone who is actively interested in things he likes and not waste his own time with people who have no interest in the things he likes?

My friend spent the first half of an adventure mode pumping his magic while playing as a thief and then a warrior. When he switched to Wizard, he bought a ton of Magma spells and STARTED KILLING ME IS A SINGLE HIT. FOR LIKE A MONTH (in game of course) STRAIGHT.

Strangely enough I have a story about that game. I'm 21 now so seeing as I can't do math, i was probably around 4 when I played it first. Basically I played the freeware version and loved it, and like the nerd I was built a statue of jazz out of rolled up paper cylinders. My parents took a picture of me next to it (it was larger than me) and sent it to EPIC games. They sent me back a note thanking me for the support and a full copy of the game for free.

The game has a lot of competition coming out in the coming months, the user base of WoW has already suffered a ton of losses because the quality of the game has been lowered below what it used to be. Basically they want to secure customers for as long as possible by suckering them in with what looks like a good deal. Blizzard ruined their own game and is trying to salvage what is left before it is gone for good. WoW will never be fun again and this annual pass won't do anything to help them get new customers, just maintain the ones that can't see that adding a Panda to an already shitty game doesn't make it fun.

Woah. I didn't think i would meet someone who went through the same thing as i did, i mean i knew there has to be people, i just never thought i would come across one, ever. Well, the same thing happened to me, except this was with WoW, and when TBC (The Burning Crusade) expansion just came out. Sadly, this was the 6th grade for me, when one of my friends told me to try it out because he plays it. I knew little about computers, and he showed me how to set it up with a private server he played. Once i joined, the instant second i started my first quest i was "WOW-ified." The graphics, the world around me, the leveling system, quest, pve & pvp aspects of the game grasped me like a mother grasps her newborn. It was here, when i got hooked. I played everyday, at least for 6 hours. On the weekends i would play 8-10 hours. I didn't have many friends in the 6th grade, but in the 7th grade i had more. And i never once hung out with them outside of school, and only talked to them about everything WoW. I remember rushing home afterschool, worked on my homework and did my chores within 45 minutes. Then it was from 4pm - 9 pm playing wow. I repeated the same in 8th grade, and throughout these years is when i got situated with computers, i learned so much, i mean a lot. This is how i have all this knowledge (and still learning!). and it was in the 9th grade when i somehow quit. My private server had shut down, and i was put next to a girl in my bio class in my freshman year, who became my current girlfriend now. I missed out on quite a bit social development, and i was always shy around people i didn't know. But i guess the only thing i really had was confidence, it wasn't that hard for me to ask her out after i was comfortable with me and her dating (we were friends first.) Sorry i shared some of story, but i thought i'd let you know you aren't alone on that aspect.

I'd hire/force Ron Gilbert to make a proper Monkey Island 3. Not that I haven't liked the games that have been made since MI2 (Curse of Monkey Island is like, my favourite game ever) but I'd love to see how the creator of the series would have ended things.

I don't believe it is just karma whoring in the vast majority of cases, EA has stumbled a lot, and there are many who are understandably angry. But how does one go about protesting a company as large as EA? you build support to boycott their sales. That support takes time to progress, if there was just a single post on Reddit stating "hey buds, just to let you know, origin sucks!" there's no momentum. In a similar vain, when the movement began to boycott Bank of America, it took time to build support, people posted about how bad the service was in droves and the momentum began, leading to tens of thousands of people leaving.

700 for the console + about $5-10 extra per game (Or a lot more if you catch them in Steam sales). Assuming you have purchased a computer, that's another $300-400 or whatever you paid. Lets just say you paid a round $1000 over the years for that Xbox, although this is an underestimation, and if you bought a bigger/better television for the console, it would be much higher. 5 years ago a PC with console specs would probably run around $500 + accessories (I'm leaving them out because you already had them/would have bought them for your non-gaming computer anyways). Nowadays, this PC would definitely need an upgrade, so lets say you bought extra RAM and a better GPU. Yes, if you go for the most expensive ones, this could cost $400-500, but if you look around for a bit, you could find some of the last-generation ones for about $40-50. This would leave you at a computer that is vastly more powerful than a console, and at 60% of the cost overall, not to mention the lower priced games, plus free games that can't be played well without a relatively powerful PC.

I'm a '97 child, so CTTR was what I played, it really brought my brother and me closer and I had no idea before the game that shooting/driving could go so well.

To be honest it was not that like that at all until a little less than a year before the great reddit-digg merger. I guess I am a hipster redditor but I have the attitude that if you liked digg more than reddit (before digg4) you don't belong here. We preached and preached (not really, everyone pretended it was a secret club) that reddit was better than digg and they all all laughed in our faces. "who would want a white website woth only text and links, it looks like a child designed it." Then they join the club and act like they always were redditors. "ahh its so clean and minimalistic." It pisses me off because the culture reddit had going was somewhat crushed and never resurrected. Some of it lives on at news.ycombinator.com and it's precursor sladhdot.

Ehm, you're joking right? Considering you spammed the cynical "Are you fucking kidding me?" face all over I assume you aren't. These games hardly qualify as full Pokémon games... The GameCube games don't even allow you to go into the wild and catch Pokémon, only quick travel from town to town and steal other people's Pokémon. And the Stadium games were only fun because of the Mini games. Finally, the Pokémon Global Link is a Facebook style flash 'game' that allows you to get 1 Pokémon for free every day(you can even fail the mini games and still take one home)... So I don't really see how any of these quality as a good arguement against people just wanting an open world style Pokémon RPG on a console, either online or offline...

no offense but what she doesn't know won't hurt her. Games like SWTOR and WOW have a bad rep, people who don't game think you'll become addicted. But if you have nothing else to do, well worse things could be done. Shit, you could be cheating on her.

A little while back Frictional Games was giving away Amnesia for free if you played it through onlive. I can say that it was and will be the only time I will use their service. I do not have bad internet connection and I have a very powerful computer. Unfortunately because the streaming sucks, I had multiple disconnections. The performance is not computer based, it relies on your connection. I was not able to change resolution or anything.

I'm a PC Gamer myself, but also own a 360. Here's what I think it boils down to. 1) People in my age remember a time when a new game would inevitably mean a scramble to upgrade system RAM, or get a better graphics card. Because most games nowadays are developed for a console first, and since console specifications belong to 2005, most games can be comfortably run on 2007 level PC hardware, on medium to high settings, with only a few games making use of the PC's generational leap in hardware. That means you don't have much to show, in the way of better graphics or better fps, except for maybe 10 pc games, for all that money you pump into a gaming rig. 2) There are many console exclusives (like Gears of War 3, Forza, GT5, Heavy Rain etc) which won't ever be released on the PC. Whereas there are almost no PC exclusives left. So console owners tend to have access to a better modern catalogue of games, although PC game libraries are immense in themselves as well. 3) A sore point for PC gamers is the fact that most developers avoid it due to the rampant piracy that plagues it. Most of us will pretend otherwise, but we grew up pirating games and only started purchasing them when we got jobs and saved up enough. We may cry ourselces hoarse about Steam, but outside developed countries, i would wager that Steam's install base is tiny compared to the user base for consoles. Strangely enough, PC games tend to have better value because of modding, extensive sales (Steam etc), and user base support that gives a game a long life way after dev support has ended (think of Vampire: Masquerade, Morrowind etc). 4) The extensive sales of Console games vs the sales on PC ensures that developers install ridiculous DRM that most console players don't have to deal with.

For the simple reason that games designed for the PC and games designed for consoles were often completely different with minor cross overs (eg DooM ports to consoles). Then more and more console games started to be ported to PC, and more PC games ported to console, eventually reaching a critical point where games started being designed for simultaneous PC/Xbox/Playstation release. However, as consoles typically sell more copies of games the simultaneous releases are heavily aimed at the demands of the console market, which tends to be younger and more "casual", leading PC gamers feeling ignored. This has also happened as the games industry in general massively expanded and became more commercialised leading to game design being profit focused instead of gamer focused which gets blamed on the focus on consoles.

This isn't even bad support. They were clear and understandable. This is at worst a bad policy (not the same as bad support.) If the promo was free shit and you wanted a refund, then the problem is a bad customer.

I watched my brother play both the souls and I have never had less appeal for a game. The gameplay and visuals seems to be around a 6 foot radius around the main character with darkness everywhere else. The controls seemed clunky and slow. Ugh, just horrible to watch. He assures me its good and the fan base is adamant as well. And to keep things in perspective, I also watched him play oblivion and I thought that looked god awful and I ate my words on that one.