Chris

I'm definitely getting the Xbox version. These days I'm so fed up by what can go wrong with gaming on PCs these days that I'm just going to play the game on as stable a system as I possibly can. My two month old professionally built computer just crapped out on my last week while I was doing absolutely nothing demanding or out of the ordinary, and after literally seven hours on tech support I had to ship it back. Who knows if I'll even have the damn thing back by the time Psychonauts comes out. From now on, I'll play PC games if that's the only system they're available on, or if it doesn't make any sense to play the game with a controller, but for games that look like they'll be the same experience or better on a console, fuck the PC. I should just get a Mac. I'll play Blizzard games and be happy. I'm sick of dealing with all this stupid shit that breaks all the time; it's unbelievable. I'm a born and bred PC gamer, and if it weren't for the PC I never would have gotten into gaming, but I've never had a single problem with any console I've ever owned, and I've had at least one major or fatal problem with every PC I've ever owned. I paid $1400 for this piece of crap. I want it to work. EDIT: Sorry, that was more bitter than I intended. I'm just really pissed that I won't have access to my brand new computer for at least a month while they figure out why the hell it doesn't work.

I actually liked the Beyond Good and Evil print ads I saw. There was one with Jade with her back up against a wall and text saying "TRUST YOUR GOVERNMENT" or something like that. That sounds cheesy but it looked really good to me. The colors were awesome and it really captured the tone of the game for me (at least the "dungeons") without coming off as faux hardcore.

A game has to go gold before it's on the shelves. "Going gold" means that a game is finished and has been pressed onto its final gold master. They don't actually use gold masters in the games industry, but the expression stuck.

After having a long, uh, "talk" with Gilbert, and having talked to Tim quite a bit, I actually wouldn't mind seeing the two get together to work on a project, if it didn't keep either of them from doing their own stuff. They have different strengths as designers, but I think they share an overall goal of what a good game should be. To be sure, the biggest obstacle for the two of them working together would probably conflicts in terms of creative control, but that's why I'd rather see them collaborate on a side project rather than a Big Important Next Game.

I don't think he was saying he NEEDS him, just that he'd like to see the two collaborate again...

Sounds awesome. For those of you who play Halo 2, here's a fun zombie game variant: Make a custom Slayer game, preferably on a closed inside map, and get as many people in there as possible. Set the weapons to swords and shotguns only, and turn off shields. Choose one guy to be the zombie, and put him on the green team. Everyone else is on the blue team; they're humans. The zombie can use only the sword, and the humans can use only shotguns. Basically, the humans have to try to stay alive as long as possible. When a human kills a zombie, the zombie just respawns, but when a zombie kills a human, that human must switch teams to green, becoming a zombie (then of course he is only allowed to use sword). When there is only one human left, that human "wins" and he gets to be the zombie for the next round. At that point you don't need to do anything to keep playing, just reverse the color roles and start over--so now green is human and blue is zombie. Zombie is best with sixteen players on a tiny map like Foundation or Midship. On Foundation the humans can hide out in one of the four team rooms and push the crates and stuff into the door to make a barricade. It makes it extremely difficult for the zombies to get in but if you're a zombie and you do make it through it gives you quite a sense of accomplishment.

Wait, that's NOT what it was? Er, whoops...

Third party controllers

Maybe its fairly slow pace and lack of specific genre categorization? I don't really know, I'm just guessing.

I was completely floored when I was told to my face by a game industry professional (who will remain nameless...) that "Beyond Good and Evil was kind of fun, but let's face it, who wants to play a slut and a pig?" I didn't really know how to respond.

He looks like a far angrier man in the DICE pics.

Yeah, it's kind of disappointing to me as well. (Not to mention, "Stranger's Wrath"?? Give me a break.)

Damn, I was hoping Thumbs could snag the first Beard Schafer interview.

Wooo!

I agree with Marek. What's he's saying about vision and concept-before-gameplay is exactly what I kept trying to get across over at the AG forums over the last week or so.

Yes?

I have spent a retarded amount of time in WoW just sitting in the middle of a town or something hanging out. It's kind of insane. I love and hate that about Blizzard. I love it obviously because they make great games. However, I hate it because it makes game design so easy, and it makes me think stuff like "Man, I could totally make a great game. I mean look how obvious everything is, I could do that." Unfortunately, not the truth. Word.

Thanks for the heads up. That Howard Scott Warshaw interview was pretty fascinating as well. Onion AV Club always gets the best interview subjects.

GameStop has the other versions for preorder as well.

Twice!

I found this thread late, but I figured I'd just respond to this particular sentiment: Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahah!

Where exactly would it not be a Tuesday?

Crazy... Well, KOF and DDR aren't exactly PC-ish franchises. I guess ports exist, but I'd be hard pressed to include them in the general category of "PC gaming".

Those aren't PC games though, are they?

On the last level, you can pick up everything once you get fast enough.