Chris

That would be actually pretty fitting for a "Director's Cut" mode, since if that were the case it would be restored content--as opposed to how most video games treat New Game+ modes, which is to add content created expressly for that mode.

You may recall that a couple months ago we held a contest to make up Ultra Boost flavors and, in one case, create a Thumbs-themed LittleBigPlanet level. Despite many delays, I did indeed sent out all 45 (or so) games, and some recipients sent over notes and pictures showcasing their hauls. I figured I'd post those here for the forum to admire. Anyone else who was one of the lucky winners can feel free to post their own evidence. Adam W included a picture of the limited edition, exclusive Chris Remo business card included with every shipment. Surely this post will invite critical comparisons between the value of the various stacks of games. I tried to do my best to roughly balance them in terms of offsetting some of the lamer games with better games -- of course, that's all based on my own game preferences, so results may vary.

Thumbs should be quite well represented this year. Jake and Nick and I will be there of course (not sure about Steve's presence?), and a whole bunch of the UK crew like Alex Ashby, Ben Andac, Lawrence Bishop, Bronstring Marek Bronstring, and the New Zealander Duncan Fife. Maybe even other people who I wasn't aware were coming. Anyway we will endeavor to have extra people cast into your faces. It should be good times.

Sorry for the delay! Here we are. A slightly schizophrenic episode. "Citizen Killzone" Following modern trends, this episode eschews its core gameplay for a series of scattered but crowd-pleasing showpieces. Hop in a Big Stompin' Mech with F.E.A.R. 2, use a mandatory turret to defend your favorite FPS titles, and perform an overly-animated finishing move on "opinions." Games discussed: F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Watchmen: The End is Nigh, Quake Live, Left 4 Dead, Killzone 2

I think they give out the same awards every year. They just looked at Braid and thought "Hey it's downloadable and 2D... Casual!"

Nick was talking extremely quietly for much of the second half, so I had to do really extreme noise reduction and compression to try to make him audible, and doing that stuff really kills the actual fidelity unfortunately.

Spicy Horse is that studio, but that studio didn't make Bad Day LA. Spicy Horse made Grimm.

No guest this week, just us. And space Nazis. "War of the Broses" Grab a brew and waste the Space Fuhrer with your friends from the quad. Chris weighs in on Killzone 2, Nick weighs the good and bad of two upcoming strategy titles, and Jake weighs the importance of a polished first play experience... with your mom. How many times have you heard a dictionary say "penis?" Games discussed: Killzone 2, Halo Wars, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, World of Goo, Left 4 Dead

Hot Scoops is back! Hooray for us! This time we talked about things we like! "Upping the Majesty" Special guest Steve Gaynor joins us as we sail over grassy dewswept mountains resplendent with gaming's bounty, then crash-land into an F-bomb laden cutscene. Plus: Watch your cursor drift towards the "buy" button as Nick fills us in on the Dawn of War II single-player. Games discussed: Flower, House of the Dead: Overkill, Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, Dante's Inferno, Burnout Paradise

I played the beta for many, many, many hours. I can't wait to get home and play the single-player--I've already downloaded it via Steam by logging into my home PC remotely--but I'm stuck at this stupid airport in Las Vegas with a delayed flight.

In order of where I lived: San Francisco, California: There are two official sites for this town, where I was born. http://www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/ which has a fittingly pretentious URL, and http://www.sfgov.org/ which looks like a domain squatting site Bronxville, New York: http://www.villageofbronxville.org/ I lived there next. It was old-timey, like the website now is! Temecula, California: http://www.cityoftemecula.org/ "This web site conforms to W3C's "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" When I lived there it was basically a bunch of dirt. I think it is still that, with more strip malls. Del Mar, California: http://www.delmar.ca.us/ Seems pretty clean and decent-looking, with some irritatingly overused fonts. Kind of like the town. Berkeley, California: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ It has that one stupid font that you see all over the city. San Francisco, California Hey I'm back here again! Weird.

I didn't find POP much fun at all, and I played all the way through Underworld, so yeah I agree.

Well, a number of inputs on the PS3 controller are analog, such as the sticks and the bottom triggers, so you can just press them partially and you won't go at maximum speed...

Play the HL2 episodes! They are even better I think.

I liked FEAR 2 and Watchmen! I may not have communicated that well enough.

That shit is rad

Yeah, probably this weekend.

This is hilarious and awesome. I lost it at "Hey everybody, it's Christmas Time!!"

Haha, that is fantastic!

Killzone's AI is good, but the rest of the game design--in particular much of the level and weapon design--didn't actually encourage me to take advantage of that. And it's true what you say about Half-Life 2 for example. The thing is, Half-Life 2 has tons of other stuff I find interesting instead--the way the world looks, the atmosphere, the non-shooting sections of gameplay, the pacing, and so on. Killzone 2 is literally nothing but shooting for the entire game, in a world that I find very generic, and it didn't really succeed as a nothing-but-shooter for me. As far as the CODs, I have only cared about COD4 recently--again, you are correct about its combat and encounter design, it's completely scripted. However, the things that game does in terms of framing its missions, adhering strictly to the Valve-style first-person perspective at all times (which I always find interesting as a gamer), moving control from character to character depending on the plot (with some really cool and unexpected justifications), the inclusion of things like the AC-130 gunship (which is one of the only times playing a video game I've actually thought about what it would be like to be an actual soldier killing in real life, and been disturbed by it), and so on, are all things that hardly any other game is actually doing. Basically, I don't need every FPS to follow the same formula. But I do want it to do something interesting beyond just put guys in front of me and have me fire bullets into them. If the game is going to be nothing but shooting ever, I'm totally fine with that, but it must do it in a really cool way. To me, Killzone 2 did a decent job of it, but not one that actually made me excited or compelled for the majority of the game.

That's not accurate to 1977 graphical capability at all

I had this problem but it was fixed with the final game.

It's a new segment! Please enjoy it. "With Joe Pesci" Special Report! Duck for cover, commandeer a Jeep, and man a turret: Resident Evil is back, and Idle Thumbs is blasting through the gates of a midnight embargo. With Joe Pesci. Sometimes something comes up mid-week that we want to talk about. This time we actually did. We may do more of these in the future. Games discussed: Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 4

Surely you could allow for the fairly likely possibility that the stuff they're heavily discussing in their public relations schedule does not perfectly map to the stuff they're actually focusing on in development. Whether or not it's a massive pillar, again I feel like you're just making assumptions about its relative weight compared to the others. Also for what it's worth, I have plans to play this game at all and am not personally interested in it, so I'm not just trying to come to defense of my favorite game or anything like that.

Can you do that after failing a race, or does it have to be when you're still in the race? Also, does it work for non-race events?