Chris

I'll try. It's an old camera and I don't know if anyone has access to a video card that can capture it, but I'll give it a shot.

Not so interested in any of those, but I really really really want Lumines!

Other funny internet things possibly no longer funny include: shitty satirical pictures made in Paint.

Bah, my friends and I had the same idea months ago, AND we filmed stop-motion claymation out of it.

Well as long as there's a reasonably small delay between the Japanese and worldwide releases, that's not too big a deal. I can wait until summer. Psychonauts and World of Warcraft will surely carry me until then.

Agreed. I do think that projects like Facade are beginning to show that such procedural approaches can be undertaken in a narrative setting too, however. I mean I don't think it's necessarily as "pure" an example of it as a Wright game, particularly something like Spore, but it's interesting.

Oh man that ruled.

Also, Will Wright's games tend to be fairly concept-driven, whereas Molyneux at least lately more often just promises a bajillion features. Wright's games often have lots of distinct features as well, but they tend to be built around a grand procedural design that seems way more scalable than the games of most designers. Spore is just even more scalable than any game ever. I mean I'm taking this game with a grain of salt but, honestly, if anyone can do it it's Wright.

It's not that weird. Bards and minstrels are common enough in RPGs.

Geez, that movie is going to be insane. I hope it's also good.

I think Treesus is spot-on about many of the location influences. In fact, there are a bunch of humans who even speak with that classic Oldy Westy Fronteir Sheriff accent that you see in old westerns. I really like that Blizzard has carved out its own niche in terms of setting. I mean, obviously they fall back on a lot of the same Tolkien cliches that are practically part of our mythological culture now, but they definitely have a very down-to-earth wide scope of influences. I definitely don't feel like it's some dorky hardcore cheap fantasy novel author writing this stuff.

Yeah, that was DMA Design, which was still the name of the studio on the first GTA games.

I'm glad someone else thought that trailer was shit. I haven't talked to anyone who didn't like it.

I like that Annable's Telltale comic is in a fairly different style from his Grickle/Hickee/Stickleback stuff, which I really like but which was starting to cry out for more variation.

I'm pretty sure that guy wasn't American, since it didn't look like the video was shot in America.

But it makes any post that uses it way funnier!

Since when does it not let you change skin tones? All the characters I've created had like 8 skin tones to choose from.

I didn't mean to start a battle either. I mean I'm voicing my (current) opinions about PCs but I'm not trying to actually fight with you (or anyone else in particular) about it. And if that's the case about PCs, then that's just lame.

I guess I can sort of understand the space thing, but at least you can keep your consoles and keep playing those games. When you get a new PC or new PC components, the old ones are pretty much useless. I mean, I'm planning on buying a new video card as well (when I get my damned computer back) and I can either hock the old one on Ebay for a fairly insignificant sum considering it has no box or manuals or drivers or anyhing, or I can just chuck it.

There's still hope! You could have a nice PC and a console! And you could play Psychonauts on either! Or both! At the same time! PSYCHONAUTS MANIA. EDIT: And if you don't have a GameCube (which may well have more exclusive titles than any other system including PC), they're only $60 friggin dollars for a refurbished one from Electronics Boutique. I stopped in to my local store the other day and almost couldn't believe it. That's like one and a half games, or even less. Ludicrous. I don't really know if such deals exist in everyone's respective countries, but there have to be deals that are at least relatively comparable. Sixty dollars, good lord. Even if it breaks, you could buy like three extras and make a table or something if you have some plywood. Apparently though some show on TechTV took all the current consoles and bashed them with hammers and threw them out of windows and stuff, and after all the "tests" the GameCube still worked.

Well, yeah, I mean that was the most recent PC I had before my current one, and it had severe problems twice, the second time of which was not worth the $500 it would have cost to repair. It's not like I've had a bunch of working PCs in between then and now. How often do you expect me to be able to buy a computer? And I can't really find any fault in my judgment. I mean I had a Toshiba laptop, and as far as I could discern from extensive research Toshiba makes some of the best laptops around. Then I recently purchased an Alienware desktop, and as far as I could discern from extensive research Alienware makes some of the best laptops around. I guess I'm an unlucky bastard. However, in addition to being an unlucky bastard, I don't think it's really all that surprising that a box full of components from a dozen different manufacturers all running with various drivers that are revised and updated all the time, while being loaded with demanding software that can potentially come in conflict with said drivers, is at least SLIGHTLY more prone to failure than a device constructed for one purpose and one purpose only, with a set of hardware that (despite obviously being susceptible to the Electronics Diseases that can inexplicably affect anything that whirs and calculates) is pretty much guaranteed to work in harmony at least from a software point of view. Also that sentence is super fucking long but I'm not going to change it. It's worth noting that I really love PC games. Like I said, I was raised on them, and most of my favorite games are PC games. I want to be able to play them, which is why this is so damned upsetting to me. For crying out loud, I only really even wanted to play one game for the time being! World of Warcraft was the only thing on this machine, and that's hardly even close to the most demanding thing out there these days. I don't want to have to constantly worry that one of the most expensive things I own is for some reason one of the most fragile, delicate, and precariously constructed things I own. When I watch a movie, I don't want to need to know how to spool a reel to reel projector (see, I don't even know the terms), and when I listen to an album I don't want to sync up a DAT tape in some complicated studio, and when I read a book I don't want to have to do the bloody typesetting--sure, that's all extremely interesting shit and actually I'd really like to learn about all of it, but not just to enjoy some culture or art or entertainment or whatever you think any of that stuff is. Same with games. I understand that games are more technology-based than most entertainment, but there shouldn't be any need for that stupid fact to bitchslap me in the face every time I shell out $50 for what I constantly pray will be an even relatively snagless gaming experience. I really have little to no doubt that eventually the technology will catch up and we'll have beatifully functioning gaming PCs that don't require you to take out a mortgage. Seriously. However, at least for me, and clearly not for some of you, you lucky shits, that time IS NOT NOW. I don't know WHY it's not now, but I've tried to suggest a few reasons and if pressed I'm sure I can think of some more. In conclusion: I want PCs to be awesome but they hate me and shit on my face every day.

I doubt they are anywhere near as flagrant as you suggest. Anyway, even if you did care, I'm not sure how you'd combat my generalizations with anything except generalizations of your own based on your PCs not working. PCs are a big pain in the ass. Lots of people don't have problems, but I'm willing to make a pretty sure bet that more people have or have had problems with their PCs than haven't, and surely far more have had problems with their PCs than console owners have with their consoles. Obviously on a forum like this, where many of the people come from places like Adventure Gamers and Mojo, people are going to be generally defensive of the PC. And hey, a gaming PC costs anywhere between five to twenty times what a current console costs, and you still have to worry about meeting all sorts of extensive system requirements. And then there are the games that for some reason don't support these random four video cards, even though the cards are only a year or two old. If you happen to have one of, well, sucks for you. Go buy a console or two's worth of hardware (ie, one video card) to "fix" the problem. EDIT: Since Kingz doesn't care, this message is to the world.

Yeah, apparently they do test them for hojillions of hours before selling them. I ran into a weird infinite loop error that apparently could be caused by any number of ridiculous things not due to user or manufacturer error. That's how fragile PCs are. And I guess it's sort of better than 10 years ago, but 10 years ago there were so few permutations of hardware that games could actually just give you a list of soundcards or whatever and you could just select it, because developers pretty much knew every card you could possibly have. Video accelerators weren't even an issue. The PCs were more of a pain to get up and running and set up in the first place but once you did they were pretty damn durable. I actually have had WAY more problems in the last 5 years with PCs than I did in the years between 1989 and 1995, which was when I was really into PC games (probably because my PCs tended to work).

What's WoW doing on the cover of the March issue? It'll be 5 months old in March.

What do you mean, "it's not PC's fault"? PC isn't a company, it's a format and in many ways it is archaic and dumb. There are a lot of thing about the system that need to change. Hardware needs to work better together all the time, there need to be more standards. I understand the need for competition but it would be in everyone's interests if they got together and just made sure all their damn products worked together. And for the record, I bought it from friggin Alienware. I mean I'm sure people have had problems with them in the past, but I have never read a review of their machines that was less then glowing. Clearly I will never buy from them again. I mean, I never expected to again anyway because I never expected to be in another financial situation that would allow it, but now I REALLY won't.