Sno

Did you not pick up on the thing about different combos smashing enemies in different directions, trying to hit them into various surfaces for the most damage? There's a few other tricks in there, like carefully timing dashes with attacks to execute special moves that let you spin around an enemy and attack from different sides to get around an enemy's guard stance. It's not a deep game, but it's definitely not a raw button masher either. You only have a few options, but they're very situational. Which version of the collection were you playing? The PS3 one, i'd assume? Was the slow down bad enough to really be negatively affecting the experience?

There's been a lot of talk about the last big skirmish in EVE Online, the two largest factions going at it with more than 2800 active participants in the fight. A particularly detailed write up that explains everything quite clearly. God, I love it! Internet space politics.

Not feeling it? What didn't you like?

Yeah, you definitely move significantly faster while swimming underwater.

There's a fairly significant number of small Japanese developers that have been developing games with a preference towards the 360 rather than the PS3. Cave is another one, for example, that has frequently expressed in interviews that they have a close relationship with Microsoft in Japan and that it makes the 360 very easy to develop for. It seems like Microsoft has, either intentionally or inadvertently, fostered some fairly dedicated support from several small, well-loved indies in Japan. However, given that Microsoft seems to finally be giving up on Japan, i don't know if it will carry on through to the Durango, but for the 360, it's been one of the reasons i've enjoyed it so much.

I just so much vastly prefer the X-box Live experience to that of PSN, and have grown disillusioned with the layers of DRM and service walls that pervade PC gaming. Also, things like Halo, Gears of War, and a ton of niche games that were bizarrely 360-exclusive for no apparent reason kept me significantly in the Microsoft camp this generation. (Treasure has pretty much been developing exclusively for XBLA over the last few years.)

The Star Trek reboot was already pretty much A New Hope, so i suspect JJ Abrams can probably make a pretty good Star Wars movie. It is undeniably odd that the same man will have directed the revivals for two legendary, competing sci-fi franchises.

You are my favorite person.

You can't even expect the publishers to always figure it out, the retail case for Lost Odyssey is awful. It's one of those cases that stacks the discs such that they're sure to scratch the hell out of eachother. To add insult to injury, the post only fits three discs and the fourth is just loose in the case in a little paper sleeve.

The 360 has been hitting against the DVD storage limits pretty hard, a lot of games have been shipping on multiple discs. Rage, Dead Space 2, Halo 4, Forza 3 and 4, PGR4, Witcher 2, Mass Effect 2 and 3, those are all two disc games. LA Noire and FF13 shipped on three discs, Lost Odyssey was four. I'm sure there are more examples.

Rez!

I'm not sure what i could contribute to your understanding of the game. I had just kind of just been feeling my way through it, and i'm not sure how far i want to go with it. (I don't want to assume that you're starting from nothing, but you do understand as much that it's safer to setup up a killer attack with a normal hit, things like that, right?) Just at a very basic level, I think the big thing is you have to assume everybody is trying to be an opportunistic back-stabbing asshole. If you fail to get a decisive kill and the opponent starts playing really evasively, it's sometimes best to just let them go. Drawing out a fight just opens you up for somebody else to swoop in. There's also some very impressive combo videos that have been going up on youtube, if you want a glimpse of the more technical side of the game, but there doesn't seem to be much of a community out there talking about the game, i haven't seen any guides or anything yet. Apparently the game also has some smallish issues with lag causing a few specific attacks to behave in unintended ways, as well as some loops and infinites.

I didn't like the sound of what they were doing for 3, but i was at least expecting a competently made game, albeit one that i would find personally infuriating. (UNIVERSAL AMMO IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA.) you know, but then you sit your ass behind a piece of cover for a woefully out of place bit of stop and pop, and it flat out doesn't work. No matter where i positioned Isaac, he was firing shots directly into the crates he was hiding behind. I do not think, from this demo, that Dead Space 3 is a competent game. Even the things that they didn't change, things that were so perfectly nailed in the first two games, they seem noticeably worse here. The feel of the game is all wrong, it feels stilted. It just looks so muddy and shitty too, they're focusing in real close on some seriously assy textures, these are kinds of things that never would have flown in the first two games. Man, that demo sucked.

Man, i didn't even know that one. Huh.

Man, that Dead Space 3 demo. That is bad. Dead Space 3 is bad. The enemies are not as reactive, the cover system basically does not work and it is alongside ranged enemies that are awful, the game is really quite surprisingly ugly, and co-op always ruins horror. The new weapon crafting thing seems interesting, but it comes at a cost. (Universal ammo and some seriously dubious balance.)

I think you guys are crazy, i have never had trouble with that jump. Did the PS3 version break something there?

They also serve an important purpose in Gears of War, they hide level loads. I mean, and in the context of those being games with generally a more measured pace, they're also not as out of place and as offensive. Hopefully the final game doesn't have too many of those walk and talks. Also, I have seen footage of enemies crawling around and still attacking after having their legs cut off, though i didn't think to try it in the demo. Has anybody actually tried messing around with combinations of dismemberment to explore possible reactions? (What a weird, horrible sentence to say.)

I'd really, really like to believe that this game is awesome, but what i've seen of it so far looks pretty blah to me. Holy shit is that soundtrack overbearing.

I think the sword mechanic is incredibly cool and has a lot of interesting potential. In the demo, you're only using it to eat robot spines for health, but it's strongly implied that there will be other targets in the final game. (Collecting left hands as a form of currency is basically outright stated.) I suspect that will end up being the dog tags element of MGR, and that could be a really cool self-imposed challenge. I did have trouble aiming strikes, i think the control scheme could be better. (If you didn't have to "slash" with the stick, if you only held down a direction to aim and then maybe hit the right trigger to actually attack, that would probably work better.) Also, the demo is up on Live and presumably PSN now, accessible by all. I downloaded it to see if it was any different, but it's the same as the demo on the disc, though i could swear the physics have been improved for slashable objects. It wouldn't be Zone of the Enders if it wasn't overshadowed by a Metal Gear demo.

I think it is pretty bullshit that Dark Arisen is an entirely new version of the game. Capcom is using the "we didn't plan ahead" excuse, "no DLC hooks" they say. (They keep fucking doing it though, the same story every time!) The extra absurdity in this is that Dragon's Dogma already had a ton of DLC, but it was all just unlocking stuff on the disc. Now they decide to do a genuine content add-on for the game, and it requires that i buy another disc. God dammit, Capcom. Arrrgh.

Apparently Homeworld will be auctioned off as part of a "legacy assets bucket" at a later date. There's also a rather fishy, flaky looking indie team trying to secure those rights for themselves. Dammit, i wish Relic had done something with that series after THQ had recovered it for them. They had it back, and now they've lost it again.

Platinum, of all companies, has apparently already been expressing interest in trying to nab Vigil and Darksiders for dirt cheap.

The stream only talked about the Wii U, and i don't recall it being said which system libraries would be present at the launch of the Wii U VC. I'm sure they'll start with some of the core NES/SNES stuff and branch out from there as they build the selection back up with new/updated additions. Wait... GBA games on the Wii U VC? Where did you read that?

I actually had to look up Koch Media, i wasn't familiar with the name, but they're the parent company for Deep Silver. Most recently, you'd probably recognize Deep Silver as the publisher for Dead Island and Risen. Helpful wiki page! I don't know if Red Faction came as part of the Volition deal, but it sounds like they definitely have Saint's Row.

So how about all that THQ stuff? Sega owns Relic and their franchises. (This seems to have been the biggest, closest battle. Zenimax was going after Relic too.) Koch Media/Deep Silver now owns Volition/Saint's Row and the publishing rights for Metro: Last Light. Crytek bought the rights to Homefront. (I believe they were developing a sequel for THQ or something?) Ubisoft ended up with the publishing rights for Obsidian's South Park RPG, as well as ownership of THQ Montreal. (The studio that Assassin's Creed creator, Patrice Desilets, left Ubisoft to found.) Take Two ended up with the rights to Turtle Rock's next game, Evolve. (I have not heard anything about this game, but Turtle Rock definitely has a strong pedigree.) Nobody bid for Vigil or Darksiders, so that's a bummer.