Marek

Had my flight cancelled today because of this. I live close to a Heathrow flight path and it's incredible how quiet it is today. I'm sure soon enough MI6 will infiltrate the volcano base and take out Dr. Evil, and everything will be back to normal.

Day 1 purchase for me

Watch this video: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gameplay-series-red-dead/64250 Now everyone buy this game when it comes out and we'll play it together. I mean seriously holy shit. I want to ride across the plains with you dudes.

Yep that's basically what happened. There's more to the story (I recall TeleFragged also making a ludicrous copyright claim to everything on the site), but the gist is we got horribly shafted. It kind of destroyed me at the time. Looking back though it was a good learning experience (especially on the legal side of things) as it prevented me from getting shafted again in a similar fashion. P.S. Classic Dance will haunt me forever.

360 for me too.

Hi Mike! That's AMAZING. Your name is one that will always vaguely ring a bell because I'd see it anytime when I'd be moving articles around in the site admin and things like that. I will never forgive you for those shitty screenshots though. Looking at that archive.org link I just saw an interview I did gleefully about 11 years ago (when I was 16) with someone who's now a direct colleague of mine. So weird.

Man, I was only joking, but this page is now result #5 on google for my name.

Idle Thumbs traditionally was a collaboration between a bunch of dudes in the US and a bunch of dudes in the UK, so both countries have always been a large part of the community. In the UK aren't you allowed into a pub when you're 17? But you can't order alcoholic drinks? How does this work.

I doubt this has anything to do with lack of motivation. I suspect the games just didn't sell very well, so they want to move on to other things.

I know, it's sad.

Traditionally always been strong, but declining in recent years. Whereas Canada is growing like a mofo due to super extreme tax breaks there. Lots of talent getting drained out of the UK (as well as France). If any tax breaks do end up being implemented there will be a 'cultural test', which is required under EU law (or else it's 'state support' which would disrupt the internal EU markets blah blah). If it's similar to the cultural test for movie industry tax breaks it won't really mean that suddenly we'll see loads of games with people wearing top hats saying cheerio etc. -- some details here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/the-culture-question

When we colonize the moon we should just do it wiki-style.

There is a UN treaty prohibiting governments from claiming ownership over any celestial bodies (or for that matter the land on it), however there's no such treaty preventing private companies or individuals from doing so. There's been some silly companies selling parcels of moon land since the 90s. I doubt anyone would honor your little moon land certificate of ownership if you had one though. Personally I think if you manage to build a house on the moon then you are probably awesome and should have the surrounding land as your fair and just reward.

I think when seen from the perspective of a student, the best thing to get out of an education is an understanding of the processes, approaches, thinking etc. that goes into whatever you want to do in the games industry. For a game designer, you can probably self-teach a lot of design-technical things such as creating mechanics (e.g. rock/paper/scissors), tweaking/balancing, the basics of level construction, GDD writing, etc. If you read a lot, experiment, etc. you can get a feel for these practical things over time. But much harder to achieve without a full education is the fundamental insight into conceptual processes / design thinking, iterative development, user testing, brainstorming techniques, etc. These are best learnt within groups and in an experimental school setting with guidance from teachers, as these are kind of intuitive and not so easy to get from a book. I don't know as much about programming but it might be similar there -- I imagine after a while you can self-teach a lot of languages and specific tricks and techniques, but what's much harder to learn on your own are the right general problem-solving skills, the underlying logic of certain approaches, the usefulness of certain standards/best practices etc. Unfortunately, from an industry perspective, what you'd probably want is just more dudes who can model a thing or script a sequence. You're probably not really going to hire people fresh out of school who have the right insight and vision but do not have great practical skills that you can immediately slot into a team at the most junior level. Still, I think if your ambition is to make games, seeking out one of the more 'design philosophical' slanted courses is probably the way to go. You might have a tougher start in the industry than those who were taught a lot more immediate practical skills, but you'll have core fundamental insights to build on for the rest of your career, and with that insight you can probably learn all the needed practical skills on your own over time, or mod/indie/whatever your way into the industry and get a start somewhere somehow. That's what I've seen from my experience anyway. Results may vary, I am a doctor not a lawyer, etc. etc.

The book was mentioned at the start of Wright's lecture so the connection was intended. I am personally only 20 pages into that book though (I happen to be reading it at the moment) so I don't know how his talk relates to it.

Haha man I sound really unfriendly. I'm glad I made things spill from your nose though. Feels like a small but important contribution.

Man, that's some nice SEO there... I'm scared. But yeah totally, I'm there for most days and might be able to meet up.

The Idle Banter forum still has the old banner. I think the contrast between the banners was sort of appropriate at the time they were implemented.

So, question, how are you supposed to know that you need to assign to the fire team? What information about this character do you as the player have to make that decision? Same with sending back to the Normandy.

Heh, you wouldn't expect it to affect anything BUT the tactics? It's like saying the diplomacy won't really affect the gameplay beyond the strategy. Anyway I'm very excited. I remember being really skeptical about Civ 4 before its release but it ended up being my favorite in the series.

There was exactly zero romance during my playthrough. I'm sure it was because I played as a woman, but was still thinking like a man.

Just in case this is in fact an excellent movie reference: 2 DOLLARS!!

I'm guessing because I didn't do Jack and Samara's loyalty missions, and failed the ones for Thane and Zaeed. I lost So yeah I guess the moral of the story is don't follow me into battle.

Just finished the game. Great game, though mid-game I wished it didn't stick so much to a predictable flowchart-like mission/story structure. It became pretty lame that every character has an unlock mission and then a loyalty mission, all the main missions come from the Elusive Man, etc. I really liked the . That said, I like that everything led up to the "suicide mission" and that you had an explicit goal for collecting squad members rather than just having them around. Oh did anyone else think ? But yeah great game. There's 33 hrs on my savegame but I feel like I just sliced through it.

Hahahah oh man the stuff you guys said about Heavy Rain is so right. Just started playing it and I'm having the same experiences with the animation system. It's like directing your own retarded comedy double-take mini movies. Wait for it .... waaaaittt for it ... maaaaybe he's gonna open the car door now OH YES HE'S GONNA OPE-- no he's not.